A Leica 0-series camera made in 1923 was sold this past weekend at WestLicht Photographica Auctions for a staggering €1.32 million (~$1.89 million). Only about 25 0-series cameras were manufactured to test the market before Leica began commercially producing the Leica A. It’s the most expensive camera ever sold, but is still only half the price of the most expensive photo that was auctioned earlier this month.
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Cindy Sherman’s “Untitled #96″ from 1981 has become the world’s most valuable photograph after selling for a staggering $3.89 million at a Christie’s auction yesterday (it was estimated to be worth up to $2 million). The winning bidder was Philippe Segalot, a private advisor to some of the world’s wealthiest art collectors. The photo takes the top spot away from “99 Cent II Diptychon” by Andreas Gursky, which enjoyed five years as the world’s most valuable photo after selling for $3.35 million back in 2006.
(via ARTINFO via Popular Photography)
Image credit: Photograph by Cindy Sherman
While Nikon Corporation was established in 1917 (as Nippon Kōgaku Tōkyō K.K.), the company was a lens manufacturing company and didn’t make the first Nikon branded camera until 1948. The first camera was named the Nikon I, and started with serial number 60922. On May 28th, Nikon I No. 60924 will be auctioned at the Westlicht Photographica auction. This is the third Nikon production camera ever made, and the oldest known surviving Nikon camera. Bidding starts at €70,000 (~$100,000), and the camera is expected to fetch up to €160,000 (~$230,000). Some lucky (and wealthy) camera collector is going to be the owner of a rare and beautiful piece of photographic history.
19th WestLicht Photographica Auction highlights (via Nikon Rumors)
Here’s another site you can bookmark if you’re constantly on the hunt for cheap, used camera gear to play with: PropertyRoom.com is an online auction site through which law enforcement agencies can sell goods that were stolen, seized, or found. There’s a section just for for photography that includes cameras, lenses, and accessories. Like the Goodwill auction site we featured last year, the fact that these auctions sites are lesser known means it more likely that you’ll be able to find a crazy deal.
Forget those fake plastic (but wildly popular) mugs that look like Canon lenses, there’s a one of a kind custom lens cup made from a real $1,300 Canon 300mm f/4 L lens being auctioned on eBay. Kai over at DigitalRev had an accident while shooting a video about the lens and, instead of tossing it out, they decided to convert it into a cup and auction it off for charity (all proceeds will go to help victims of the recent Australian flooding).
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Goodwill has an online auction site called shopgoodwill, and categories in the Cameras & Camcorders section include film cameras, lenses and accessories, and vintage cameras. It’s not nearly as well-known as popular auction sites (e.g. eBay), so you might be able to find a good deal on camera gear!
(via A Photography Blog)
Forget the uber-rare Leica MP2 that’s going on auction at the end of this year. If you want a unique camera but don’t want to trade your house for it, you can save yourself a couple hundred grand by going for this brand new made-for-NASA Hasselblad MKWE up for sale on eBay for a cool $33,751.
We’re not sure why the price is so specific or what exactly makes this a NASA camera (it doesn’t seem to be branded so), but it’s a definitely an eye-catching Hassy.
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This Leica MP2 camera and matching Wetzlar electric motor are going up for auction at WestLicht Auction in December of this year. The starting price for this auction is €80,000 (~$105,000), and the camera is expected to fetch up to €180,000 (~$235,440).
The reason this camera is so darn valuable is because while Leica MP2s are already quite rare, only six of them were ever made in black. This is one of them — the first to ever be offered for sale, and in fully original condition. Welcome to the crazy wonderful world of Leica collecting.
Do you think photographers in the future (assuming they exist) will be collecting any cameras being made during our time?
(via The Online Photographer)
A signed print of Edward Weston’s Nautilus Shell purchased for $10 in 1927 has been auctioned off for a whopping $1,082,500 at Sotheby’s auction house in New York.
We reported last month that the print, purchased by a young photographer named Bernice Lovett, was estimated to fetch up to $500,000.
The photo ended up going for more than double that amount.
Edward Weston created the photograph in 1927, the same year Lovett purchased it at San Francisco’s East West Galleries. The photograph is now regarded as one of the great modernist photographs of all time, and this sale places it among the most expensive photographs in the world.
Another of Weston’s photographs on the list is Nude (1925), which sold for $1,609,000 at the same auction house in April 2008.
In 1927, a young photographer bought a print at San Francisco’s East West Galleries for $10 — roughly $125 today. Bernice Lovett could not pay the full price of the image at once, so she paid for it in monthly 50 cent installments. Lovett’s family held on to the photograph for over 80 years.
As it happens, the print was a signed, early print of Edward Weston’s Nautilus Shell, which became widely recognized as one of the greatest modernist photographs of all time.
The photograph will be sold in April at Sotheby’s auction house and is estimated to fetch somewhere between $300,000 to $500,000.
