Leica 0-series 1923 No. 122

[Shanel Arrendell]

Onlyapprox. 25 of these cameras were produced to test the market in 1923, 2 years before the commercial introduction of the Leica A. The camera is in excellent and fully working condition (a small missing piece of leather on the side has been replaced with contemporary vulcanite by Ottmar Michaely), all parts including the paintwork are original, with the matching lens cover, the folding finder has been replaced by the later Galilean finder as usual. The camera is one of the major rarities in camera history, Leica 0-series no.107 was sold in our 19th auction for a world-record price of Euro 1.320.000 including commission !

In my approach there is no hard borderline between the Null-Serie of 1923 and the second test series of 1924. I assume instead that all pre-production cameras amounted to one more or less continuous flow of test cameras up to the start of series production at the end of 1924. Very early test cameras were the numbers 102 and 106 of March 1923. These cameras were equipped with the new 5-element Leitz Anastigmat. It was very important to test this new lens before the beginning of series production.

A very late test camera was provided to Curt Emmermann at the end of 1924 or even very early in 1925. Curt Emmermann (1931) explicitly states that he received his camera from Ernst Leitz for test purposes (zur Begutachtung). This camera was already equipped with the new shutter.

I've been very busy since I came back from Wetzlar last weekend, Roland. Otherwise I would have been in touch directly with you. While I was attending the auction, I was looking for the records for a number of cameras, including No 132 which had been sold at auction in Vienna about a week earlier as the seventh ever production I Model A on the basis that No 126 was the first one . -auction.com/lots/view/5-MFL5O/leica-i-mod-a-anastigmat

It could be surmised with the gap after No 122, that the real start is at 126, but this is still speculation. Cameras were going to various places from New York to Giessen (No 129) which is very near to Wetzlar. No 121, which is not listed here, comes up for auction in October and Lars is assembling the story of the camera and I am sure that Ottmar will have had a look at it. I met Ottmar a few times on the day of the auction and we discussed various things, but not the topic of the production series start. The Richter book records that No 126 was said to have been engraved on 24th November 1924

The 130 series started in January 1925, but was not necessarily issued in numeric order. No 132 was sent to London on 16 January 1925. I was told that No 132 is not now in original condition and it would, indeed, be strange to find a metre scale lens on a camera going to London in 1925. The scale, now on the camera, has a 7 metre mark, but in 1925 and 1926 Leitz 50mm meter scale lenses did not have this mark. See the Anastigmat example sold at Leitz Auction on 10th June. The assumption must be that No 132 was altered after 1927.

You can trust the details provided by Ottmar Michaely. My own feeling, looking at all of this, is that the production series started in late 1924/early 1925 and that No 126 is as good a place to start as any. Supplies through Leitz London would almost certainly have been for customers and not for tests by trusted parties. However, I suggest that testing this hypothesis might be difficult in the light of the paucity of available information.

There must be a point where testing ended and Leitz started to provide cameras for 'real customers'. As I said earlier, I am only speculating, in the absence of other evidence, that it was around this time that the supply of production Leicas commenced. There must be a point in time when this happened. The earliest advertisement for a Leica which I have seen is in German and is dated May 1925. The first English advertisement for a Leica is from Ogilvy and is dated 1926 and is from the Mortimer Street address which became the home of Leitz UK.

You will have to forgive my lack of knowledge of old German scripts. Tim Pullmann at the Archive and I discussed the writing without reference to old German scripts. He was convinced this said 'London' and I accepted his word for this. I bow to your superior knowledge of such scripts. This may also explain why the scale is for metres. However, the distance scale was changed later as indicated by the details I gave earlier. If you compare the Ostlicht and Leitz Auction examples you will see what I mean. They are both metre scale, but the earlier camera has a later distance scale.

A second source is Dr Paul Wolff (1934) who gives an account of an interview with Oskar Barnack.

Dr Wolff relates that in 1924 'a first series of six cameras had left the Leitz factory'.

This confirms the number of six cameras, but it is not clear whether Dr Paul Wolff refers to six test cameras or to the first six cameras of series production.

Van Hasbroeck (1987) assumes the latter.

This reading implies that at the end of 1924 the first six Leicas had been for sale. But were they also sold before January 1, 1925?

Probably of little help to such a detailed study, but over the years, I noted observed cameras and where I saw them. Most have likely moved to on to new owners. JNC was the former John Newton Collection. BB is Barnack/Berek newsletter.

I am only certain of one thing and that is that Barnack constantly tinkered around with the early cameras. So it would require real expertise to determine everything that was changed and when it might have been changed. Roland is correct in identifying Ottmar Michaely as being the person best qualified to do this, Lars Netopil has also seen many of these cameras and is currently getting ready to auction No 121. I am hoping to write a piece on the camera before the auction. Last year Jim Lager gave a talk at the UK Leica Society AGM in Buxton in which he showed examples of 0 Series cameras and the results of his researches carried out many years ago. I believe there is an article or two about his talk in the TLS magazine and possibly on Macfilos as well. Lars and I were at this talk. I will see what I can post from this here.

The net issue here would seem to be, when did the prototypes cease and the actual commercial production begin? Looking back over 100 years this is difficult to determine. I will see if anything still exists about order No 416.

Perhaps we could build a record here about what everyone knows about each of the 0 series cameras, it is highly likely that due to the extremely high value a lot of these cameras will be locked away in vaults, never to be seen again.

There must have been a drift from prototype testing to the sale of commercial items. There was likely to have been overlap between the two processes for a period with full advertising and commercial launch happening in the Spring of 1925.

What is more clear is the distinction between 0 Series and I Model A cameras. One of the main indicators of that is the shutter speed dial in place of the slit width indicator on Nos 121 and 122. I suspect that No 126 may have been the first camera with the speed dial and certainly No 132 has this and is a true I Model A. Beyond that you would need to handle the individual cameras and only people like Ottmar and Lars have done this for a reasonable number of cameras. That is probably as important as the records that may survive in the archive.

This is actually a very interesting question. The camera almost certainly would have worked its way into the Smithsonian Museum collection, if the US Government did not return it. The Smithsonian holds 13,646 patent models.

The Smithsonian is one of world's greatest collectibles mausoleums with less than 0.2% of its holdings on display. And much of the rest uncatalogued. A search of their camera holdings shows that the museum knows of 241 Leica associated things that it owns. There are photos of 74 of them online, some of them are photographs and some are not really associated with Leica.

Leica Camera AG presented a new edition of the Leica 0 series at the photokina 2000 in Cologne. Originally produced in only small quantities in 1923/24, this series can be regarded as the basis of modern 35mm photography and the precursor of the first commercially marketed photographic camera, the Leica I, launched in 1925 by the Optical Works of Ernst Leitz, Wetzlar. The replica of the camera is being produced to commemorate the 75th birthday of the Leica in the year 2000.

The fully functional camera is intended for people who like classic products, particularly photographers who like to experiment. With its extremely reduced technical features and absolutely manual operating routines, some of which are quite unusual, it is a new challenge for today's photographer. To be able to use the camera, he will need to consider all photographic parameters in detail and think about every single operation. The deliberate deceleration of the photographic process as opposed to the fully automatic camera computers that are customary today leads to distinctly puristic photography with an extremely personal slant explains Stefan Daniel, Head of Product Management at Leica Camera AG. Nothing is done for the photographer, he has to consider and perform each step himself. This is photography in its purest form - without any influence by the manufacturer. The result bears only the signature of its creator, without any traces of preconceived photographic ideas and automatic functions.

3a8082e126