A camera small enough to slip into a jacket pocket is expected to sell for up to half a million euros later this month. It measures 100 × 64 × 48mm, Leitz built it in the mid-1950s, and only two were ever made. One sits in the Leica Museum in Wetzlar, a design study that never took a picture. The other works. On 28 November it goes under the hammer at Leitz Photographica Auction 49, alongside a lens with a Cold War past and a camera that went to the Gulf with Sebastião Salgado.
The 49th sale takes place at Leica Welt in Wetzlar, with more than 400 lots on offer. Leica cameras, lenses, and accessories comprise the bulk of the catalogue, but plenty of other makers appear too. Estimates run from a few hundred euros to the six-figure sums that make the headlines.
Alexander Sedlak, managing director of Leitz Photographica Auction, expects the familiar pattern to hold, with historically significant rarities and special editions drawing the strongest bidding. He picks out the BOX in particular, of which, Alexander says, “only one operational example is known to exist today”.
A pocket prototype
The Leica BOX uses the 18 × 24mm half-frame format, which goes some way to explaining its size. It is among the smallest cameras Leitz ever built. Of the two prototypes, the museum example was made purely as a non-working design study. This one carries serial number 000.01, and it is fully operational.
Why did the design go no further? The auction house doesn’t say. The estimate is €400,000 to €500,000.
The spy lens
In the late 1960s, Dr Walter Mandler designed the Elcan 66mm f/2 at Ernst Leitz Canada, on commission for the US Navy. According to Walter, the Navy’s intelligence service wanted a lens that “looked like any other but delivered an unparalleled level of resolution”. Ernst Leitz Canada made only about 200 of them, which places the Elcan among the rarest lenses ever built for the M system.
Leica revived the design on 3 September 2026 as the Summicron-M 66 f/2, part of its Classic Line, in an edition of 660 numbered lenses at €9,850 each. Serial number 001 is in the sale, estimated at €16,000 to €20,000. That is up to twice the list price, for the same glass with the lowest number in the edition engraved on the front ring.
Noctilux at sixty
Leitz began making the Noctilux in 1966 and showed it at Photokina in Cologne the same year. The original 50mm f/1.2 was the fastest lens of its type at the time, and the first Leitz production lens to use aspherical elements. According to Leica, only 1,757 left the factory before it was replaced in 1975.
To mark the anniversary, an exhibition on the history of the lens opens at Leica Welt over the auction weekend. The family has grown considerably since 1966: a 50mm f/1.0, the 50mm f/0.95, a 75mm f/1.25, a reissued f/1.2 in the Classic Line and, this January, the first 35mm Noctilux.
Salgado’s Leica R6
Provenance has always sold well at Leitz auctions, and few names carry more weight than Sebastião Salgado. The Brazilian-born former Magnum photographer died in 2025. Sebastião used this Leica R6 to photograph the burning oil fields of Kuwait during the Gulf War, pictures that rank among the best known of his career.
The lot includes two photographs from that series and a signed copy of his limited-edition photobook Workers. The estimate is €28,000 to €32,000.
Leitz ON returns
The online-only Leitz ON sale, which made its debut alongside Auction 48 in June, returns for a second edition. Bidding opened on 29 October and runs until 29 November. Leitz Photographica Auction pitches it as an easier way into collecting, with cameras and equipment from a wide range of manufacturers and photographs dating from the 1920s to the present day.
How to bid
You can bid in advance online at leitz-auction.com, in writing or by telephone. On the day, live bidding runs through leitz-auction.com and LiveAuctioneers.
Will the BOX reach its estimate, or will Salgado’s R6 steal the room? Tell us which lot you would bid on in the comments, and we’ll report the results once the hammer falls on 28 November.
Further reading
| Macfilos Articles | Other Links |
|---|---|
| Leitz Photographica Auction 48: A spotlight on Leica cameras from the 1950s – June’s sale, where an MP-33 made €600,000 | Leitz Photographica Auction 49 – The full catalogue, Leitz ON lots and bidding details |
| New: Leica revives its Cold War spy lens as the Summicron-M 66 f/2 – Our launch story on the Elcan reissue | Leica Summicron-M 66 f/2 – Leica’s own history of the spy lens and its revival |
| Leica Summicron-M 66 f/2 review: The classic Elcan 66 remake – Our full test of the reissue | Leica Noctilux: The ‘Light Giants’ have turned 50 – Leica’s history of the line, from the 1966 f/1.2 onwards |
| First Review: Why the Leica Noctilux-M 35 f/1.2 ASPH matters – The newest member of the Noctilux family |
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