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LEITZ — LEICA

Leica Screw Mount Cameras

1 Ur-Leica Replica € 800 * 3 Leica 0-Series € 400.000
no. 33, c. 1980, condition B+ € 1.600 – 1.800 no. 122, 1923, condition B+ € 700.000 – 900.000
One of 31 replicas by Italian Alberico Arces, very well made and in Only approx. 25 of these cameras were produced to test the market
good condition (some wear of the paint on the edges), with maker’s in 1923, two years before the commercial introduction of the Leica
box. Alberico Arces was a precision mechanic and the boss of the A. The offered camera is in beautiful and fully working condition, all
local Italian Telecom State Company’s “Telex repair and maintenance parts including the paintwork are original, with the matching lens
shop”. In this capacity, he headed a small team of highly specialized cover and the original folding finder. The Leica 0-Series is one of the
precision mechanics and had at his disposal all kinds of fine metal major rarities in camera history — camera no.117 sold at WestLicht
machining tools. In order to keep his team busy, Arces had the idea auction in 2014 was the most expensive camera ever sold — the
to let them make UR-Leica replicas based on drawings he had found. offered camera is probably the most original and best condition
The result was so good that he developed the “business” with the example, only about three cameras are known with the original
enthusiastic help of his team. His “Nullserie” replicas existed nearly folding viewfinder. It also has the unique film spool and take-up
20 years before the costly Leica ones. Next to the normal or “brassy” spool. Illustrated in Lager I page 14., delivered to George Sauppe
UR-Replicas, he made tubus and folding viewfinder versions of the from New York. The camera was for decades in possession of the
Nullserie. Sauppe family, displayed in the California Museum of Photography
at Riverside.
2 Leica 0-Series Replica € 1.200 * Provenience: the famous collection of Jim Jannard!
no. 15-B, c. 1980, condition A € 2.400 – 2.600
Rare replica with tubular viewfinder by Italian Alberico Arces, in mint
condition, certificate, maker’s box

Leica number 122, the first one brought to the U.S. by a customer, in printed in Paul-Henry van Hasbrouck’s book on the Leica. Although
this case George Sauppe, who would ride the Leica’s star to at least some inventories of Leitz instruments in the U.S. had lasted through
two successful careers in California. Leitz records show that 122 was to the early postwar period, institutions using Leitz microscropes
registered to Sauppe in 1923 and just a year later he and his partner and other scientific apparatus were eager to purchase new models;
Gustav Spindler had been assigned the distributorship for Leica and demand was so great that Sauppe’s trip to the first postwar medical
Leitz in the western USA. convention in San Francisco resulted in all the items in the Leitz
booth being sold. Not a single product had to be returned to New
George Sauppe became a Leitz salesman and after the war was able York. He convinced his friend Spindler that California was the place
to travel to Wetzlar as a representative of the New York agency which of opportunity and how right he turned out to have been! Spindler
was run by Alfred Traeger. Ernst Leitz, the company’s founder had and Sauppe were designated west coast Leitz distributors for 11
died in 1920 and his son Ernst II now headed the firm which was western states and two offices were set up: at San Francisco in 1924
trying to reestablish its civilian markets while at the same time coping and a year later in Los Angeles. At first both partners were in San
with the runaway postwar inflation plaguing the defeated Germany. Francisco and a branch manager, Emil Eisenlohr, ran the Los Angeles
The practice of having sales personnel visit the factory annually for office. Later George Sauppe would himself move to Los Angeles
new product orientation and sales training allowed Sauppe and Ernst leaving Spindler in San Francisco. California was the land of oppor-
Leitz II to meet. George Sauppe’s interest in photography with small tunity for Spindler and Sauppe! The Leica proved to be a smash
cameras brought him in contact with another Leitz employee, Oscar hit — a successful photographic product and an intriguing piece of
Barnack, whose invention, a still camera using cine film was soon to high technology suitable for wearing around the neck as virtually a
be manufactured by Leitz as a way of diversifying and building cash piece of jewelry. Spindler and Sauppe worked with a red-hot retail
flow. This was to be the famous Leica but at the time of their meeting outlet which they supplied. This was the Morgan Camera Shop in
it was not much more than an idea and a controversial decision by Hollywood run by Gilbert Morgan, whose brother Willard was Leica
the new head of the firm who went far out on a limb in opting to Manager for Leitz in New York, and whose store at Hollywood and
manufacture it. George Sauppe was enthralled by the early version Vine was the Leica shop for the film community. Celebrities were
of the yet unnamed Leica, then in limited production and not yet seen using the Leica: film stars like Robert Montgomery; aviators like
fully on the market. He wired to Traeger in New York who had no German ace Ernst Udet who performed at the 1933 Los Angeles Air
wish to take on a consumer product and the telegraphed request Races; musicians like George Gershwin who wore a Leica loaded with
for permission to purchase a camera for the agency was denied. Kodachrome, the new color film co-invented by his brother-in-law,
pianist Leopold Godowsky.
However, Sauppe believed so strongly in the potential of the little
camera that he bought one for himself; it bore the serial number 122. Lit.: LHSA Viewfinder VOL. 22, NO. 4, 1989
A reproduction of the Leitz ledger sheet recording the sale has been (thanks to Bill Rossauer and Ottmar Michaely)

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