A one-off Leica compact camera prototype built for the Agfa Karat 35mm film system in the 1950s is being sold at the Leitz Photographica Auction in Germany next month.
It is believed to be the only fully functional Leica Box camera to have been made.
When it goes on sale in Wetzlar, Germany in November, this camera is expected to sell for as much as €500,000/$561,750).
“The offered camera bears the engraved serial number 000.01 and is, according to current knowledge, the only fully functional Leica BOX known to exist,” Leitz Photographica said in a listing for the sale.
“The camera features a solid metal body with chrome finish and black vulcanite covering. Its construction and external design follow the contemporary Leica M series rather than the earlier screw-mount cameras. The camera is fully operational, with a correctly functioning shutter and clean, clear optics.
“It is fitted with a fixed Leitz Summaron 3.5 cm lens. The lens flange also serves as the release mechanism for the removable base plate, an unusual construction detail specific to this prototype. The camera further features an integrated optical viewfinder and centrally positioned shutter-speed control.”
This camera differs from the only other Leica Box – a design model kept at the Leica Camera Archive in Wetzlar – by having a 35mm lens instead of a Summaron 28/5.6.
The camera is well-known among serious Leica collectors as it features in the book ‘Protype Leica’. Leitz Photographica Auction itself says “the Leica BOX represents an exceptionally rare Leica prototype from the mid-1950s”.
The camera will go on sale – alongside a host of other rare Leicas – at the 49th Leitz Photographica Auction on 28 November.
I'm a New Zealander who has been living in London since the mid-1990s, shooting film seriously since the year 2000. Kosmo Foto was launched in 2012 and has since become a film brand, with the release of my first films Kosmo Foto Mono 35mm (2017) and Kosmo Foto Mono 120 (2019).
I’m doing everything I can to promote film photography in the 21st Century, and help it survive and thrive. If you want to write something for Kosmo Foto, please drop me a line at foto.dowling@gmail.com.
