Oscar Barnack's very own Leica 0-Series no.105 from the Leitz Museum in Wetzlar is being auctioned

[wizard]

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vor 18 Stunden schrieb willeica:

Changes were made from the very start to this camera which was originally not owned by anyone in particular, but , in essence,  belonged to the factory i.e. Barnack and his team. 

Quite correct, William, but that was not the point I was trying to make. 105 was in the Deutsches Museum for six years already in 1939. All the changes you refer to were made long before, likely around 1925 and the following few years when the Leica evolved from a prototype state to a product that was marketed and entered series production. 105 was in the Deutsches Museum for six years, starting already in 1939. I do not expect Leica to have effected any changes to the camera at that point, as the camera was no longer with Leica anyway, but belonged to Oskar Barnack's son Conrad.

vor 18 Stunden schrieb willeica:

"All 1923 0-series cameras I have inspected (12 of the 17 pieces known to exist) show clear traces of a (previous) installation of a folding finder. Types number 2 and 3 you describe are all conversions, on which the original finder was replaced by an optical finder, whether with crosslines or without." 

I fully agree with Lars here, but the changes referred to by him are changes that were effected to the 0-series cameras long before 1939. I was referring to changes made to 105 after 1939.

vor 18 Stunden schrieb willeica:

"Rewind knob as well as the inner counter part of the rewind mechanism on No. 105 have been replaced by parts from a later Leica model A. Same the bottom plate. This has the sense of making the camera suitable for the use of (the later) FILCA standard Leica cassettes. Originally the 0-series cameras required the special 0-series type cassettes of 1923, a standard FILCA won´t fit. "

You do not say when those modifications took place. Knowing that this camera was a museum piece already in 1939, I would definitely have refrained from effecting those changes afterwards, as this means changing an important piece of cultural heritage. There would have been no problem in obtaining one or more special 0-series type cassettes (105 had one anyway, I presume) if it was desired to use that camera. And let's face it, in 1939 Conrad Barnack was hardly likely to use this camera as his odd Leica, as I am sure he had other cameras available if he needed to take photographs.

vor 18 Stunden schrieb willeica:

Given the above information, are you still appalled that this camera was modified? Its designer, Oskar Barnack, intended that this prototype would be modified and had his team make several modifications to the camera. If anything, that adds to rather than detracts from the provenance of this camera.

I do not know whether appalled is too strong a word or not, but let's say I do feel very sad that certain changes were made to the camera long after 105 had left Oskar and his team. And some of the 'changes' like scraping off perfectly fine original paint to better reveal engravings were utterly unnecessary, to put it mildly. Those cahnges certainly do NOT add to the provenance of 105.

vor 17 Stunden schrieb Anbaric:

There's a distinction, I think, between modifications made in Barnack's lifetime during the development process and things that were done to it afterwards, perhaps outside the factory, perhaps decades later. If this camera was already being treated as a museum exhibit by 1939, it's odd to think that someone apparently thought it was a good idea to gild the lily at some point after 1945.

That's exactly my point.

Andy

[LocalHero1953]

Appalled or not, the auction house should sell it with an unambiguous description. This is what is stated on the website:

"The 0-Series with the serial number 105 was the personal camera of the the inventor of the Leica - Oskar Barnack.

This inconspicuous-looking black-painted camera shows a patina of years of use. Some of the parts have been exchanged by the owner. The Galilean finder shows a distinctive engraving on the top: ‘Oscar Barnack’. The inventor used the camera until 1930, when he gave it to his son, Conrad, and began using a Leica I Model C with interchangeable lenses. It stayed in the family ownership until 1960, when it was sold to a passionate U.S. collector."

There is nothing there that is logically inconsistent with @wizard's findings, and perhaps a serious collector might make their own investigations into who did what to it and when. As a mere ignoramus, I would be misled by those statements into thinking that the finder and engraving originated with Oskar, who also exchanged the parts.

Fortunately, I have just found a hole in the pocket where I kept the loose change I was going to bid with. Hey ho, I'll just have to make do with buying Twitter instead.

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[pgk]

4 hours ago, Anbaric said:

.....much of the value of this camera comes from its association with Barnack ..... this unique camera will find its own value.

Its association cannot change. If this is where its value lies then the value will be what someone is prepared to put a price on this association. I doubt that the modifications will have any effect on such an association and may well suggest an unknown pat of the camera's history well worth investigating.

I will add two questions and an observation:

What would the camera be worth in its original state as an unmodfied camera with no association?

What would it be worth in its modified state as it is now with no association?

The association with be the price which is paid less the second valuation. I presume that the difference between the two valuations above will be a minimal figure relative to the value added by the association. We shall see😁.

Edited May 13, 2022 by pgk

[willeica]

4 hours ago, wizard said:

Quite correct, William, but that was not the point I was trying to make. 105 was in the Deutsches Museum for six years already in 1939. All the changes you refer to were made long before, likely around 1925 and the following few years when the Leica evolved from a prototype state to a product that was marketed and entered series production. 105 was in the Deutsches Museum for six years, starting already in 1939. I do not expect Leica to have effected any changes to the camera at that point, as the camera was no longer with Leica anyway, but belonged to Oskar Barnack's son Conrad.

I fully agree with Lars here, but the changes referred to by him are changes that were effected to the 0-series cameras long before 1939. I was referring to changes made to 105 after 1939.

You do not say when those modifications took place. Knowing that this camera was a museum piece already in 1939, I would definitely have refrained from effecting those changes afterwards, as this means changing an important piece of cultural heritage. There would have been no problem in obtaining one or more special 0-series type cassettes (105 had one anyway, I presume) if it was desired to use that camera. And let's face it, in 1939 Conrad Barnack was hardly likely to use this camera as his odd Leica, as I am sure he had other cameras available if he needed to take photographs.

I do not know whether appalled is too strong a word or not, but let's say I do feel very sad that certain changes were made to the camera long after 105 had left Oskar and his team. And some of the 'changes' like scraping off perfectly fine original paint to better reveal engravings were utterly unnecessary, to put it mildly. Those cahnges certainly do NOT add to the provenance of 105.

That's exactly my point.

Andy

Not sure which set of comments I should reply to, but I will try to be general and address everyone's comments all together.

If that photograph from the Museum was taken in 1939, then the camera was clearly altered after that as regards the wind knob and the engraving.  The concept of 'original condition' is a modern construct created by collectors, but it had little relevance back in the day. Leicas were regularly altered or 'upgraded' and I have many such examples in my collection. People would have thought that they were improving the camera and had no notion about altering its value to collectors 70, 80 or 90 years in the future. So, instead of looking back through the prism of 2022, we should be looking at this through the prisms of 1925, 1930, 1939, 1945, 1960 or whenever the camera might have been altered. As for whether this camera is of interest to collectors, the camera has been owned by 4 prominent US collectors in sequence since 1960 and I have the names of all of them , but I only revealed the names of the first two in my article, as I felt that I could not mention the two most recent owners as their names had not been published elsewhere. Each of those collectors would have had both knowledge about vintage Leicas and/or received advice about the camera from experts like Jim Lager and in the first instance from Barnack's own son.

In the 1930s and 1940s Conrad Barnack would have had a certain notion of the fame of his late father, who died in 1936, but that fame and the association of cameras was nothing like it is today. As I said, the prism needs to be pointed from that time rather than from today.

The point about the film cassette was that FILCAs were easier to find and use than the original 0 Series cassettes, which is what I believe Lars was saying.

I'm still mystified as to what all the fuss is here. This camera has had changes, which are obvious, but no one can question its provenance, which is the factor which will determine its value. In this context the changes are irrelevant. This provenance has been confirmed and/or accepted by Barnack's son, 4 prominent collectors, Jim Lager and Lars Netopil and Leitz Auction which is owned by Leica AG, the legal successor of the old Ernst Leitz company which made this camera in the first place. Then there is the documentation which will come with the camera, which I have mentioned a few times here. The only additional thing that you might add would be if Oskar rose from his grave and said "I used that camera". 

48 minutes ago, pgk said:

Its association cannot change. If this is where its value lies then the value will be what someone is prepared to put a price on this association. I doubt that the modifications will have any effect on such an association and may well suggest an unknown pat of the camera's history well worth investigating.

Thanks, Paul. I could not have put it better myself.

William

 

Edited May 13, 2022 by willeica

[willeica]

53 minutes ago, pgk said:

Its association cannot change. If this is where its value lies then the value will be what someone is prepared to put a price on this association. I doubt that the modifications will have any effect on such an association and may well suggest an unknown pat of the camera's history well worth investigating.

I will add two questions and an observation:

What would the camera be worth in its original state as an unmodfied camera with no association?

What would it be worth in its modified state as it is now with no association?

The association with be the price which is paid less the second valuation. I presume that the difference between the two valuations above will be a minimal figure relative to the value added by the association. We shall see😁.

i have seen your additional comments Paul. The value of such items does not really depend on 'what if' but rather on 'what is'. The main attractions of this one are

1. That it is a 0 Series camera, these have fetched huge prices in recent years

2. It has an association or provenance with the camera's inventor, Oskar Barnack

There are cameras of lesser value, which are less rare, where an alteration, say from I A to IID https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/321445-converted-leica-i-period-accurate-conversion-or-frankenstein/ might affect the value, but No 105 is way beyond that territory. 

William 

 

[Studienkamera]

7 hours ago, willeica said:

we should be looking at this through the prisms of 1925, 1930, 1939, 1945, 1960 or whenever the camera might have been altered

Post 1960 seems most likely. I assume Barnack's son would have been able to correctly spell his father's name. 

I wonder whether the accompanying documentation reveals anything about the history of these modifications.

7 hours ago, willeica said:

I'm still mystified as to what all the fuss is here. This camera has had changes, which are obvious, but no one can question its provenance

No one is questioning the provenance. Some are questioning less than sensible modifications at a time when the historical value of the camera was already well known.

It's like buying Miles Davis' Miura and having "MYLES DAVIS" engraved in large letters on the bonnet... Neither Miles Davis nor Lamborghini fans would be too excited to see this.

[pgk]

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16 hours ago, LocalHero1953 said:

I would be misled by those statements into thinking that the finder and engraving originated with Oskar, who also exchanged the parts.

Fortunately, I have just found a hole in the pocket where I kept the loose change I was going to bid with.

Well, its handy your loose change isn't there then or you might have made an awful mistake by merely reading the description and have bought the camera mistakenly. Looking on the bright side, if you had bought it on a whim, you would have been able to do an unboxing video and have compared its output with an M11 (since its now easier to get cassettes and actually use it).

[willeica]

9 hours ago, Studienkamera said:

Post 1960 seems most likely. I assume Barnack's son would have been able to correctly spell his father's name. 

I wonder whether the accompanying documentation reveals anything about the history of these modifications.

No one is questioning the provenance. Some are questioning less than sensible modifications at a time when the historical value of the camera was already well known.

It's like buying Miles Davis' Miura and having "MYLES DAVIS" engraved in large letters on the bonnet... Neither Miles Davis nor Lamborghini fans would be too excited to see this.

You are still looking at this from the prism of today. I would not make these alterations if I had the camera today, but you are applying current logic to something that was done a long time ago. This may upset you, but that is how the camera is and it will be sold on its type and provenance rather than on the basis of the alterations. In my opinion, the engraving neither adds to nor subtracts from the value of the camera, but I am not a bidder. The proof of this matter will be in the auction result. 

As for ‘Myles Davis’, I am a big fan of Miles Davis, but I have often seen him called  ‘Miles Davies’ as if he were Welsh. ‘Myles’ is a very common first name here in Ireland and if you said the name to an Irish person and asked them to write it down that is how they would spell it. Perhaps the same happened with No 105. We may never get an answer to this.

William 
 

 

Edited May 14, 2022 by willeica

[pgk]

24 minutes ago, willeica said:

As for ‘Myles Davis’, I am a big fan of Miles Davis, but I have often seen him called  ‘Miles Davies’ as if he were Welsh.

Kilometer Davies please William. We are metricated now.😄 That said, I've never met anyone in Wales called Miles although I'm sure some are.

[willeica]

1 hour ago, pgk said:

Kilometer Davies please William. We are metricated now.😄 That said, I've never met anyone in Wales called Miles although I'm sure some are.

Well 'Kilometres Davies' then. I have all of his albums. The last time I was in Wales the road signs were in miles, just as they are in Northern Ireland. The quickest route between towns in my country is often through through Northern Ireland, which means for purposes of compliance with speed limits you might have to change your thinking from kph to mph and back again 3 or 4 times in a relatively short journey. All of this is a long way from Oskar/Oscar, of course, but closer to home and reality.

William 

[dkCambridgeshire]

Look forward to reading your article Wiliam. I'll enjoy watching the auction online via 'Live Auctioneers' with a hard copy catalogue on my desk (ordered yesterday) ... https://www.leitz-auction.com/auction/en/onlinecatalogue. ... and will likely be amazed at the telephone bidding for several items as they are relayed to the auctioneer from all over the globe ... countered by room bids ... with the auctioneer very calmly repeating the bids ... and then witness the gasps and applause after the hammer price is reached. 

dunk

[derleicaman]

A clue to the first owner of this camera would be in the letter that William posted from Conrad Barnack in 1960, which is when it was retrieved from the Deutches Museum. On a side note, I had read about the collection at the Deutsche Museum, and thought I would visit it when in Munich. This was back in the early 90's. To my chagrin, the exhibit was closed when I visited the museum and appeared to be under construction. I don't know if it ever re-opened.

As William says, we need to look at #105 from the perspective of the 1930's, when Oskar last had it in his possession. It was part of the Null Series of cameras, which means it was a part of a series of protoype pre-production cameras, meant to have changes made to them prior to going into regular production. This is the intention of such cameras, not to maintain them in their original form.

Another intertesting consideration is the engraving of Barnack's name on top of the finder. It has been noted that Oskar in this case is spelled with a "c" and not a "k". Common spelling of the name Oskar in Geman is with a k, and in America it would be with a c. I believe that the fisrt American owner of the camera, who was a member of the LHSA, had the engraving done on the finder with a "c". However, I have attached a photo of Barnack's grave in the Alt Friedhof in Wetzlar, and look closely, it is spelled with a "c"! Now which is correct? I would hate to think that one of Barnack's family members, most likely his wife as she passed after him, would have spelled it wrong! I also point out Barnack's Death Anouncement from Ernst Leitz Wetzlar, shown here which is clearly spelled with a "k". I will also point out that the well-known memorial to Barnack across from the old factory in Wetzlar, and the point of interest "Man Hole Cover" in front of the famous buidling in the Eisenmarkt are both spelled with a "k".

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Edited May 14, 2022 by derleicaman

[Anbaric]

15 minutes ago, derleicaman said:

A clue to the first owner of this camera would be in the letter that William posted from Conrad Barnack in 1960, which is when it was retrieved from the Deutches Museum ... Another interesting consideration is the engraving of Barnack's name on top of the finder. It has been noted that Oskar in this case is spelled with a "c" and not a "k". Common spelling of the name Oskar in Geman is with a k, and in America it would be with a c. I believe that the fisrt American owner of the camera, who was a member of the LHSA, had the engraving done on the finder with a "c". However, I have attached a photo of Barnack's grave in the Alt Friedhof in Wetzlar, and look closely, it is spelled with a "c"!

One other place where the 'c' is used is in this same letter, where Conrad is quoting from (or translating) the text written on a photo used as a postcard by 'Oscar'. Perhaps 'c' was Conrad's preferred spelling, or a preferred spelling used within the family, and he is responsible for the engraving (not to mention the gravestone)? I have also seen Conrad's own name written as 'Konrad' in some places. Maybe a German speaker can comment on whether some people prefer to use a 'c' in preference to a 'k' in this way?

[derleicaman]

31 minutes ago, Anbaric said:

One other place where the 'c' is used is in this same letter, where Conrad is quoting from (or translating) the text written on a photo used as a postcard by 'Oscar'. Perhaps 'c' was Conrad's preferred spelling, or a preferred spelling used within the family, and he is responsible for the engraving (not to mention the gravestone)? I have also seen Conrad's own name written as 'Konrad' in some places. Maybe a German speaker can comment on whether some people prefer to use a 'c' in preference to a 'k' in this way?

Very interesting that the "c" spelling was used in the letter from Conrad. I didn't notice that, but i couldn't enlarge the letter to see it either. I know in the case of my family, my father was born in Germany in 1927, and his name was spelled Karl with a "k". This was on his birth certificate, and recorded this way in the small town my family is from. My dad's family emigrated to the US in 1929, and the spelling I had always seen growing up was with a "c". I think I first saw the spelling with a "k" in my 20's in a book on my families' geneology. I asked my dad who changed the spelling, thinking it might have been the immigration officials at their port of entry. Recall the scene in the Godfather, when they changed young Vito's name to Corleone. No my dad said, it was the nuns at Catholic School. I was shocked that my grandfather had allowed this as he was a stern old German, and the old German ways were always best. 

My family comes from a town in the far West of the Rhineland near Bonn, and I have always seen Karl spelled with a "k". Barnack came from an area further East, Lynow in Brandenburg, South of Berlin. Perhaps they used a different spelling for Oscar and Conrad in that part of Germany. I would also have expected Konrad to be spelled with a "k", being the more common form in Germany.

Edited May 14, 2022 by derleicaman

[Anbaric]

22 hours ago, willeica said:

I'm still mystified as to what all the fuss is here. This camera has had changes, which are obvious, but no one can question its provenance, which is the factor which will determine its value. In this context the changes are irrelevant. This provenance has been confirmed and/or accepted by Barnack's son, 4 prominent collectors, Jim Lager and Lars Netopil and Leitz Auction which is owned by Leica AG, the legal successor of the old Ernst Leitz company which made this camera in the first place. Then there is the documentation which will come with the camera, which I have mentioned a few times here. The only additional thing that you might add would be if Oskar rose from his grave and said "I used that camera".

I don't think anyone is suggesting that there's any doubt that this is (substantially) a camera that Barnack used, and even if it were not it would be extremely valuable as a Null series model, albeit with some later parts. Obviously it's going to sell for a great deal of money (though we'll have to wait and see if it exceeds the price of the last Leica 0 to be auctioned). But as Paul mentions above, I wonder if the purchaser will be making a fully informed decision about what they are buying? Clearly it's not in its original form, but a naive interpretation of the auction text might lead a bidder to assume it has at least been in its current form since it was in Barnack's possession  ('the owner' should really now say 'a later owner'). When something is worth millions, full disclosure is important, if indeed the auctioneers know all the facts. Maybe some of the documentation that comes with the camera gives further details (it would be particularly interesting if it could be shown that the camera was 'upgraded' when owned by Conrad Barnack). Perhaps previous owners photographed it when it was part of their collections. Or perhaps this thread is the first time the timeline of the alterations has ever been discussed, with the museum photo the only piece of direct evidence to be uncovered.

[Anbaric]

23 hours ago, pgk said:

Its association cannot change. If this is where its value lies then the value will be what someone is prepared to put a price on this association.

True enough, and luckily the replacements aren't as drastic as this 🙂:

 

[TomB_tx]

From this discussion it sounds like spellings using "c" or "k" may be personal decisions. If so, at least the engraver didn't use "Barnakc"

[willeica]

27 minutes ago, Anbaric said:

I don't think anyone is suggesting that there's any doubt that this is (substantially) a camera that Barnack used, and even if it were not it would be extremely valuable as a Null series model, albeit with some later parts. Obviously it's going to sell for a great deal of money (though we'll have to wait and see if it exceeds the price of the last Leica 0 to be auctioned). But as Paul mentions above, I wonder if the purchaser will be making a fully informed decision about what they are buying? Clearly it's not in its original form, but a naive interpretation of the auction text might lead a bidder to assume it has at least been in its current form since it was in Barnack's possession  ('the owner' should really now say 'a later owner'). When something is worth millions, full disclosure is important, if indeed the auctioneers know all the facts. Maybe some of the documentation that comes with the camera gives further details (it would be particularly interesting if it could be shown that the camera was 'upgraded' when owned by Conrad Barnack). Perhaps previous owners photographed it when it was part of their collections. Or perhaps this thread is the first time the timeline of the alterations has ever been discussed, with the museum photo the only piece of direct evidence to be uncovered.

I think that you can take it that anyone who might be spending millions on a camera would do full ‘due diligence’, but they might not care that much about the alterations or the issue of original condition. 0 series cameras are considered to be hugely desirable and fetch huge prices , but most of them are not in original condition. These were test cameras which were not sold, but were distributed to trusted parties. They came back to the works several times for alterations in their early life and, according to Lars, they often changed hands at that point. I don’t see any claim by the auctioneer that this camera is in original condition and was never altered, nor do I see any claim that it is in the same configuration as it was when Barnack used it. If that photo shown by Wizard is from 1939, the camera was definitely altered after Oskar’s death. Bidders can ask questions about those alterations, that is if they are interested in those. I don’t know what the full extent of the documentation is, but I do know that there is a letter which indicates that the camera was not altered when it went for a service at Leitz in Rockleigh USA in the early 1970s. 
 

We can keep going around in circles debating these issues here without full information and, indeed, that full information may not be available anywhere today. The ultimate confirmation of what the market thinks about the camera will be revealed on 11th June. 
 

William 

[LocalHero1953]

Is that how auctions work then? The ignorant rich don't care what happened to the camera when, as long as it was Oskar's, while the true collector will do their own due diligence?
That takes a bit of pressure off the auction houses.

If anyone gets the documentation from the auction house, I'm sure we would all like to know how it is described.

Edited May 14, 2022 by LocalHero1953

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[Anbaric]

If nothing else, this thread will give bidders something to google that will lead them to Wizard's detective work (currently on the first page of hits for 'Oskar Barnack 105').

Incidentally, did one of the experts mention they thought the bottom plate had been swapped along with the rewind knob for standard cassette compatibility? I thought I'd read (imagined?) this, but now can't find it. Still not quite Trigger's Broom, of course!

I also wonder who had the 'O.B' initialled cap made? Perhaps we'll now start to see 'Barnack' engravings and similar caps turn up on the creations of the FED/Zorki refinishers...

Edited May 14, 2022 by Anbaric