The Viennese WestLicht Photographica Auction House continued its stellar run of success with its 21st Camera auction in just its eleventh year as an auction house, when it recently broke its own world record for the fifth consecutive time by selling one of the original Leica 0-series cameras for €2,160,000 (US$2.77 million), including the buyer’s premium.
Only 25 of these cameras were produced to test the market in 1923, two years before the commercial introduction of the Leica A. Bidding started at €300,000 ($385,276).
In last year's auction, a Leica from the same 0-series from 1923 sold for €1,320,000 ($1,695,216), so with another of the 25 originals coming across the auctioneer's block, a record was in the cards before the event even started.
With bids coming from the room, by phone and over the internet, the price of the camera kept climbing past the world record and finally stopped at €1.8 million ($2.3 million), with the hammer falling to an anonymous bidder.
WestLicht Photographica Auctions' previous record was a Daguerreotype Giroux, the first-ever commercially produced camera which changed hands in May 2010 for €732,000 ($940,183).
