Our Wish List for the 100th Anniversary Leica of 2025:
Leica Lovers’ Top Picks for a Centennial Commemorative Edition
By Jason Schneider
Whether the world will still be in one piece in less than two years from now as the calendar page flips to 2025 remains an open question, but one thing is certain. It will mark the 100th anniversary of the Leica (namely the Leica I, Model A) which officially debuted at the Leipzig Spring Fair in 1925. Surely this momentous event will be marked by at least one Centennial Commemorative Edition Leica camera, most probably a limited production model suitably emblazoned with a centennial logo and a special serial number sequence. If history is any guide, these putative centennial Leicas will cost a pretty penny and be instantly snapped up by well-heeled Leica collectors. This scenario suggests that there could also be a second not quite as exclusive run of centennial Leicas, perhaps closely based on an existing model, but sporting a centennial crest.
The first Leica
The Leica I (Model A) is the camera that truly put 35mm still photography in the forefront and created widespread interest in what was at the time an upstart “miniature” format. Contrary to legend, and to a few overly optimistic Leica ads of decades past, the Leica was not the first 35mm still camera in production, and it wasn’t even the first to employ the 24x36mm format that it made famous. That distinction goes to the ingenious, bench-assembled Simplex of 1912, made in Long Island City, New York, an early center of cinematography. Nevertheless, Oskar Barnack, the principal inventor of the Leica, who tested it in prototype form (the Ur Leica) as far back as 1912, certainly deserves the title, “Father of 35mm Still Photography.” The camera he painstakingly developed under the auspices of the venerable microscope maker E. Leitz of Wetzlar, Germany, was finally released as the Leica (subsequently dubbed the Leica I (Model A), and it sold an astounding 1,000 units (at the then princely price of $75 apiece) in its first year of production. It was the first high quality 35mm camera to be mass produced, and its watershed design defined and determined the direction photography was to take in the 20th century. It established the basic shape and control layout of 35mm cameras, the viability of 35mm as a serious contender, and the excellence and legendary status of Leica cameras that continues today.
The Leica’s exquisitely compact, magnificently integrated, supremely ergonomic design certainly had a lot to do with its success, but its performance as a picture-making machine was equally important. Perhaps the greatest testament to the rightness of Barnack’s original design is that fact that, with the addition of an interchangeable lens mount and a coupled rangefinder, its basic concept and form factor endured for over 35 years, during which time the Leica name became widely revered as “the best camera in the world.”
By modern standards, the Leica I Model A (the name is a contraction of “Leitz” and “camera”) seems very straightforward and basic, and that indeed is part of its charm. A true pocket-sized miniature, it’s finished in black enamel with nickel-plated metal parts, including the distinctive “hockey stick” infinity lock on the front. Other features include a self-capping, horizontal-travel cloth focal-plane shutter with speeds of 1/20-1/500 sec plus T, set via a top-mounted dial that rotates as the shutter fires, a non-interchangeable, scale-focusing, collapsible, Tessar-type 50mm f/3.5 Elmar lens (rare early models had 5-element lenses labeled Leitz Anastigmat or Leitz Elmax) with aperture ring (f/3.5, 4.5. 6.3, 9, 12.5) on the front, film-wind-knob with concentric, manually zeroed frame counter, rewind knob, and a small optical viewfinder on the top. Like all Leicas prior to the M3, it features a svelte, one-piece main body with rounded ends, and bottom loading by means of a removable baseplate—a type of construction intended to ensure excellent rigidity and accurate lens-to-film-plane alignment. One of the Leica A’s best loved features is automatic blank- and double-exposure prevention—winding the film to the next frame cocks the shutter. This doesn’t sound too impressive today, but it was state-of-the-art in 1925. Today, the Leica A is regarded mostly as the crown jewel of any serious Leica collection—due to its historical significance and value. However, the Leica A is still a superb picture taker, and a fun, pocketable, user-collectible for those with deep enough pockets. A clean Leica A with 50mm f/3.5 Elmar sells in the $1,600-$2,500 range, but mint or near-mint examples with four-digit or three-digit serial number command much higher prices, and those with the rare lenses cited above have sold in the $50K to $100K range…and up.
Commemorative Centennial Leicas: Our Top Picks
After conferring with about a dozen hard core Leica enthusiasts, most of whom are LHSA members and/or Leica collectors, here, ranked by choice, are a few suggestions on what they’d like a Commemorative Centennial Leica to be:
1. An unabashed Leica I (Model A) clone: The top choice in our (admittedly unscientific) survey would be a replica of the first Leica, identical in every possible detail, but with a modern coated lens based on the coated 50mm f/3.5 “Leitz Anastigmat” fitted to the Ur Leica Replica edition of 2000 (which is really a recomputed 4-element 3-group Elmar). It would be suitably engraved to mark 100 years of Leica, sequentially numbered, and furnished with a 100th Anniversary logo lens cap.
2. A Leica Luxus Replica: A camera as close as possible to the fabled super-rare gold-plated limited edition original Leica Luxus with reptile covering, and with a gold-plated version of the lens cited above. This could be issued at the same time as the standard Leica I (Model A) above in a “very limited” edition of perhaps 20 cameras with bespoke reptile covering and snakeskin pouch. Leica could sell every single one they made even the stratospheric price of, say, $25K.
3. A Leica I (Model C) non-rangefinder model with standard screw mount and an LTM-mount version of the lens cited above. The camera would bear Centennial Commemorative markings and a special sequence of serial numbers. Advantages: Basic form factor of the Leica I but users could mount legacy Leica lenses on the camera and use the Centennial Edition lens on M-series cameras by means of readily available adapters.
Other Centennial Leica Possibilities:
There was an unimaginably rare Leica II Luxus, but once you get into Barnack screw-mount rangefinder Leicas, choosing which one as the basis for a Centennial Commemorative is problematic. And it’s doubtful that Leica would want to recreate and showcase, say, a Centennial Leica IIIf or a IIIg when the screw-mount rangefinder line was effectively surpassed by the M-series about 70 years ago. An “M3-ized” Centennial Leica camera based on the analog Leica M-A (Typ 127) or the Leica MP would be relatively easy to produce, and it would look lovely in black chrome. Even a black Leica M11 Centennial Commemorative Edition wouldn’t be out of the question—unless of course the rumored M12 is released prior to 2025!
It's certainly fun to speculate on possible centennial Leicas, but the most amazing thing about celebrating 100 years of Leica is that this remarkable, relatively small company is alive and well and still turning out and selling some of the best cameras and lenses in the world.
Heartfelt thanks to noted Leica historian James Lager for providing all the illustrations accompanying this article.