People collect all sorts of things. Antiques are passé and paintings are investments. Vintage cameras are a big hit among a tiny group of photography enthusiasts without much care for a value-for-money deal. While most of them can still be used, collectors maintain that the point is of novelty, not really utility. Much like luxury in itself, no?
Venture capitalist, Mohamed Ali Saleem, whose work thankfully makes him travel to interesting places and therefore interesting camera markets, says, “I have a Yashica Mat-LM and a Leica M6. I have my eyes on a Hasselblad 500C/M. The thing about vintage cameras like these are, they’re beyond what you get in Chor Bazaar. India does not have a formal market for high end functional vintage cameras. I get mine serviced in Zurich. Owing a high end vintage camera is one thing. Maintaining it is a whole other ball game. The most expensive camera I’ve bought sent me back by a cool $8000.
It was at an auction in Austria. It dated back to pre WWII. It feels good to own a piece of history. When you’re buying such cameras it is usually a sentimental buy, it isn’t for investment purposes.”
Talk about expensive cameras and the first name that pops in the head is Leica. Leica’s cameras never come cheap, but even the most sophisticated camera buffs gasped when this 1923 Leica camera sold at an auction last year. The Leica 0-Serie Nr.107 is one of the only 25 cameras in the series produced, and was one the first Leica exported to New York. It is the only camera known to have the word “Germany” engraved on its top plate. Its worth was estimated at between $500,000 and $650,000. At an auction in Vienna, in just two minutes, an unnamed collector from Asia put up the winning bid, $1.9 million.
“I don’t own any such collection as yet, but I have seen a lot of these cameras in the photo fairs and exhibitions, mostly in Europe. But unfortunately not much in India. In fact, I have seen people buying from India and selling it in other countries. However, I do have my first camera which, I think, has a vintage quality to it, since it was the first to have autofocus a Nikon F8015. I had carried it to my first assignment in Mauritius. Then I have also the Nikon F5 and F 90. In all these years I have made several transitions from Nikon to Canon to Hasselblad to Leica.But I would definitely like to own a Leica black and white,” says Mumbai based celebrity and fashion photographer Dabboo Ratnani. Before the stunning Leica 0-Serie Nr.107, the world’s most expensive camera was the antique Susse Freres daguerreotype camera. The 173-year-old camera is considered an “attic find,” with ownership of the camera having been transferred privately for many years. The camera is a rare example of the daguerreotype method and features an oval lithographic stamp signed by Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre. Today, the camera is on exhibit at Westlicht in Vienna, Austria. Estimated value: $978,000.
So when the vintage 1958-MP2 was presented as the highlight of a camera auction at the Westlicht gallery, Vienna the proceeding went into a bidding frenzy. With a starting bid of €80,000 ($106,690) these one of just six extremely rare collectibles earned a staggering €402,000 ($536,115), thanks to an Asian collector who also now owns the most expensive Leica camera auctioned ever.
Farid Sheikh who served as the official photographer of Indian Army and the Governors of Maharashtra has a collection of about 3000 rare cameras in his personal museum in Pune. “Nowadays, it is the world of digital cameras and not many people give a damn for the film cameras anymore. I feel the old cameras had a different level of precision, unmatched by the new cameras.” he says. His collection ranges from a Novelty camera which worked on thin metal plates called ‘film packs’ and could shoot six pictures at a time to a series of 150-year-old Kodak cardboard box cameras, which can take only vertical pictures to a Kodak Baby Brownie. The highest amount he has paid so far for a camera is Rs 6 lakh for a Rollei SLR 8008, bought from Sri Lanka in 1991.
However, the price of the cameras maintains no laws of rhyme or reason. In 2013, many of the experts were disappointed when one of the rarest camera couldn’t set a record. The gold-plated Leica Luxus II, dating from 1932, is one of only four of its kind ever made. The whereabouts of the other three are unknown. The camera bears the serial number 88840, is gold plated and encased in fake lizard skin. It comes in a crocodile-skin case. Many were upset when the camera was sold for $620,000.
