Cameras & Camera Equipment

A camera belonging to ill-fated US aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart is among the lots going under the hammer at McTear’s in Glasgow this month.

It may not look much today, but this camera was the latest cutting-edge piece of technology when it was first released for sale in 1899 – and it helped lay the foundations for the future of film and moving pictures. Then it retailed for £30, now it has just sold at auction in Surrey by Lawrences of Bletchingley for £7800.

The descendants of the original owner, who purchased it new from the maker, Ernst Leitz, are offering this Leica I Anastigmat Camera for sale at Special Auction Services of Newbury.

Cameras and photographic equipment are among the fastest growing categories for Newbury saleroom Special Auction Services.

From the first unwieldy wet-plate models of the 19th century to the dawn of digital technology, the changing face of cameras can make for a fascinating collection.

Leica cameras proved one of the must-have auction prizes in recent sales with record prices at Westlicht in Vienna and Bonhams Hong Kong.

Something of a photographic sensation has suddenly struck the German speaking auction world with a new record price for a 35mm camera seen at WestLicht Photographica Auction (25% buyer’s premium) in Vienna on May 29.

THE way Bonhams’ (17.5% buyer's premium) empire has adapted to the received wisdom that specialisation is a key to today’s macro auction environment is to have niche markets catered for at different outposts. Among the areas catered for at the Midlands branch at Knowle are such widely known ones as mechanical music and railwayana and, in ascending degree of arcane nature, wireless sets, optical instruments, firemarks, truncheons and tipstaffs.

Cameras: A 100 per cent sell-out is something to crow about these days and Christie’s South Kensington were certainly pleased to chalk up a complete success for their sale of Jim Barron’s collection of British Cameras on December 11.

Major photograph sales are usually confined to London and New York salerooms, but since selling the Earl Craven family archive of daguerreotypes last year Bearne’s of Exeter (buyer’s premium 15 per cent) are now on the international circuit.