The exclusive Leica M model sold $1.8 million

Worldwide known for producing cameras that cost over one million dollars, the Leica M Typ 240 fall in this luxury category. Sotheby’s auctioned the unique piece of this custom made camera designed by Jony Ive and Marc Newson for RED and sold for $1.8 million.

The Sotheby’s charity auction in New York

Apple’s senior vice president of design Jony Ive and the industrial designer Marc Newson teamed up to create the special one-off camera for the Bono’s (RED) charity auction. The Leica M custom made camera was auctioned along with almost forty other exclusively designed objects in the (RED) Auction for the benefit of a charity fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in Africa. Unfortunately, the bidder remained anonymous.

Initially expected to reach $500,000 to $750,000, the Leica M custom was sold for $1,805,000 and the Sotheby’s charity auction raised a total of $26.2 million. Leica, considered as the leaders in innovation, especially when it comes to cameras, already holds the record for the most expensive camera ever sold. Indeed, Leica already auctioned the O-series model that was sold for $2.77 million.

Leica M custom made, a unique design

Since the QuickTake in 1994, Apple has not created any camera but the Jony Ive-designed Leica M offers a glimpse of what an iCamera might look like. The exclusive edition Leica M camera, based on the current Leica M design, took 85 days to be designed going through 561 models and 1,000 prototype parts. The camera also took up an astonishing 725 hours of manufacturing time.

The end result is a stunning perforated anodized aluminium case and some slight touches to the traditional layout. Body and lens were made of a special alloy. The Leica specific leather trim was replaced by a laser-machined anodized aluminium enclosure with a finely textured texture. More than 21,000 hemispheres give the camera a whole new and unique aesthetics. The “Leica M for (RED)” is a full-frame CMOS sensor, a high-performance processor and the lens Leica APO-Summicron-M 1:2 / 50 mm ASPH.equipped but the exclusive Leica M still provides classical features such as 24-megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor, a 3-inch LCD screen and full HD 1080p video.

Dr. Andreas Kaufmann, Chairman of the Board of Leica Camera AG, Solms, explained “the exceptional design of this camera and the myth of the brand. Leica have together contributed to a record amount for the control of diseases to achieve in Africa. We are very proud to be part of this charity success.”

[button size=”small” color=”black” style=”none” new_window=”true” link=”http://fr.leica-camera.com/home/”]More information on the Leica Camera AG website[/button]