“Would you like to buy an M3 with a couple of lenses, boxed, mid 1960s?” The call came to Ivor Cooper at London’s Red Dot Cameras a couple of weeks ago. Yes, he would. But when the large box arrived in the mail there was more than one surprise. This turned out to be totally unexpected and unusual buying opportunity.
For starters, everything was in absolutely as-new condition. I’ve seen some pristine M3s but this one looks like it is still sitting on the dealer’s shelf in Plymouth back in October 1964. It is without a doubt the cleanest M3 I have ever seen and truly deserves the “mint” moniker. It isn’t often something like this happens, according to Ivor.
There were four enticing boxes in the group, containing the M3, with original Leica tags; a couple of lens boxes and a box containing an unused, wholly unblemished brown leather case. Ivor tells me that the seller, the widow of a keen photographer, confided that the entire outfit had been purchased new in the early 1960s and never used. It was still under the bed, complete with the original bill.
Back in 1964 the camera body cost £121.19s.6d¹; the 50mm lens was £77.4s.8d, the ever-ready case, £6.1s.6d and the UV filter £2.16s.0d. At some stage, the owner had ordered a spare shutter-speed dial and another accessory shoe—just in case—but they are there and still in their original plastic egg pods. The surprise lens had been added later.
The lenses proved to be more than interesting. First off came a fairly ordinary 50mm Dual Range (close focus) Summicron, complete with specs. There is nothing very outstanding about this, other than that it looked as though it had left Wetzlar yesterday. But the second box contained a stunning surprise.
This optic had been described over the phone as a “35mm Summilux ASPH”, which is interesting enough but would normally sell for little more than £1,500. This, however, was no common-or-garden ASPH. It was the rare two-aspherical-element lens marked ASPHERICAL instead of ASPH. Ivor has only ever seen one of these before; he sold it in 2010 and still regrets his rashness. A limited series of 2,000 of these lenses was made between 1989 and 1994 and this particular version came from an early batch, giving it an added cachet.
Buying in always produces a dilemma when an item has been approximately valued over the telephone and when it is not as described. In this case the description was a gross understatement. Ivor is always fair and offered the seller a market value for this very rare lens. Indeed, he had great difficulty placing a true value on the ASPHERICAL because of the few examples on the market, but he reckons it would sell for at least £5,000, possibly for as much as £6,000. That’s six thousand pounds, no shillings and nopence in 1964 money—enough to buy two houses and pocket the change.
Above: The M3 in its birthday suit; only the box shows signs of ageing. Right: The careful owner even squirrelled away spares in case of need, which did not occur in the next 52 years
Form an orderly queue in Old Street. But…. unfortunately for would-be collectors, Ivor is keeping this remarkable 1960s mintery and its 1980s rare companion for his own arsenal.
Photographs by Red Dot Cameras
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¹ A note for younger readers: These prices are shown as originally entered on the bill. They are in pre-1973 pounds, shillings and pence. There were 20 shillings to the pound and 12 pence to the shilling, thus 240 pence to the pound. Hence, £121.19s.6d equates to £121.97½. The abbreviation for penny in those days was “d” which was a hangover from the Roman denarius. Now it is “p” (pronounced “pee”, although sensible people say “pence”, as of old) which was coined by someone who who had led a very sheltered life. There was probably a good reason we stuck with the Roman heritage for the best part of 2000 years. No one ever said “dee”, so “pee” royally p****s me off. It should be “penny” or “pence” (and definitely not pennies unless you are admiring a number of individual penny coins as in “pennies from heaven”). Just thought I’d put my tuppence ha’penny in. Here endeth the lesson.
I agree with Stephen- the 50 DR is not an ordinary lens. I have the M3/50 DR combo and it has already featured on Macfilos. The 50 DR is a true work of art construction-wise and it is better than most modern lenses according to the usual criteria and it has a character better than all of them. It does not work on modern digital cameras. For that you need the contemporary Rigid Summicron. These fetch as much money as the DR and more than the collapsible model.
I have the 35 Summilux Asph (not FLE) but not the Aspherical. The reason why the Aspherical fetches more money is not that it is an inherently that much of a ‘better’ lens, but largely because of the rarity factor. This is one of the issues which confuses people who are not collectors. A lot of people will not buy a camera or lens unless they are going to use it. It would offend their concepts of utility or value for money to do otherwise. Collectors like me on the other hand are possessed by a type of ‘madness’ where mere possession is not only 9/10ths of the law, it is the whole 10/10ths. That is why people pay big money for Asphericals, Picassos and Ferraris etc. There is no rational accounting for such things, they just exist.
William
An excellent find and purchase by Ivor!
But please Michael do not denigrate that ‘fairly ordinary 50mm Dual Range (close focus) Summicron, complete with specs.’, for that is reckoned by some to be the finest optical instrument made by Leica in its entire its history… This is the lens that I currently (mis)use, it was designed for the M3 and is the closest focusing rangefinder lens, it can also be used with the old Leica Visoflex SLR system. It might not be as optically sharp as the APO, but truly a work of art in solid brass!
If it has one single drawback, it won’t mount on a Leica M6TTL, M7 or any of the digitals, apart from the SL (I hear).
Good luck on the "Aspherical Summilux" though…
I will be looking for a 35 cron soon, but that is (apart from being a lux), too rich for my rather thin blood.
Well that’s my tuppence (2d) worth anyway.
i requiem meam doleat
Ah Latin and Japanese. Is there no end to the talent? I don’t think I was denigrating the 50 DR no know it is a great lens. But it is not rare, therefore relatively ordinary and something that we can all aspire to. The Aspherical, on the other hand, is a collectors’ item and priced accordingly. It isn’t on my list of things to buy.