Leica price list 1957 or 58?

[nitroplait]

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I am playing with my IIIG - newly serviced by Jerzy, and while I love the quirks of Barnack Leica's, I also realise that they seem functionally very dated when compared to the M series.

From purely a user perspective, the IIIG is no more convenient to use than any of the pre-WWII rangefinder models, with exception of the finder. Yet, in practical use, the latter could be easily and cheaply be remedied by just adding the excellent SBOOI accessory finder to one of the older cameras - you have to move your eye anyway.

This line of thought let me to wonder why anyone in 1957 or 58 would buy a Leica IIIG over an M2 or M3?

Given the M series is backward compatible with LTM lenses, I can think of only the price.

But how much cheaper could a IIIG be over an M2 or M3? Was it a significant amount?

Does anyone have a price list from the period they were all available?

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Edited April 6 by nitroplait

[TomB_tx]

When introducing the M3 Leitz had concerns that the M was too big and too different and too expensive compared to the ltm models that were so successful by emphasizing their small size. So they hedged bets by continuing development of the III series with the IIIg. (They even prototyped a IIIg with M mount.) When I began looking at Leica in the early 1960s a dealer told me the IIIg was still available at a lower price if that's what I wanted.

I found a 1959 Leitz US catalog that lists the M3 body at $270, the M2 at $216, the IIIg at $163.50, and the Ig at $96.

Using my IIIf & IIIg I can understand the allure of using them. I remember a IIIf user taking rapid sequence shots with the normal wind knob by dragging his finger along the side of the knob. With practice I had to agree it could be nearly as fast as an M lever wind.  And of course the baseplate lever attachments were available. 

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[UliWer]

The German "Leitz Gesamtkatalog für den Fotofachhandel" from May 1959 lists the M3 for 674,-, the M2 for 546,- and the IIIg for 412,-DM (all without lens, and the prices indicate what a seller had to pay Leitz for them, so the actual price for buyers was considerably higher - the $ was 4,-DM at this time).

Many users think that a SBOOI will be fine on a Barnack-style Leica like the IIIg. I don't think it's a good idea. the SBOOI was made for the If or Ig models, where it sits much deeper. On the IIIg it is much too high and since it has no correction for parallax your sight of the motive will be also much too high. To avoid cutting off heads of people one has to practice quite a lot. The finder of a IIIg is parallax corrected, and it is much larger and clearer than previous models. 

 

[jankap]

The SBOOI is the external viewfinder. See the IIIf in Tom´s picture, the third camera from the left side. The IIIg has parallax correcting viewfinders for 50mm and 90mm (in one field) in SBOOI style.

Edited April 6 by jankap

[hepcat]

It has been reported that there was much consternation internally in Leitz about even introducing the M3.  The Barnack group insisted that the M3 would never sell, and the development of the IIIg coincided with the development of the M3.  Of course those working on the M cameras believed it superior to the Barnacks in every way, but at that point, thirty years of evolution of the Barnacks had that camera quite entrenched in the company's thinking.

Of course, the public loved the M series, and we all know the history.   At the introduction of both the M3 and IIIg, I'm not sure there WAS much difference in cost.   I'm guessing that Leitz had to ultimately lower the prices of the IIIg to move them in quantity.    A friend of my father's bought a IIIg new in 1957 and I always wondered why he chose that over the M3.  Unfortunately he passed away over twenty years ago.  I never got the opportunity to ask him.

[250swb]

4 hours ago, nitroplait said:

I am playing with my IIIG - newly serviced by Jerzy, and while I love the quirks of Barnack Leica's, I also realise that they seem functionally very dated when compared to the M series.

From purely a user perspective, the IIIG is no more convenient to use than any of the pre-WWII rangefinder models, with exception of the finder. Yet, in practical use, the latter could be easily and cheaply be remedied by just adding the excellent SBOOI accessory finder to one of the older cameras - you have to move your eye anyway.

This line of thought let me to wonder why anyone in 1957 or 58 would buy a Leica IIIG over an M2 or M3?

 

With Leica it was gradually becoming an anomaly, but the idea of the Barnack viewfinder/rangefinder combo wasn't yet dead or outdated if you consider the 1957 Nikon SP had a similar system but framelines for six lenses, and how long did it take for Leica to achieve that in the M series? Of course Nikon dropped the rangefinder camera soon after the 'F' SLR was released in 1959, but it was clearly an era when there was still some meat in the game for almost any experiment in 35mm for manufacturers. It was generally an exciting time but with a lot of soon to be dead ends, and I think Leica did have a lot of loyal users sold on Leica's own idea their camera was reliable, built for the future, and the best, so they were obliged to keep it going for a bit longer than commercial logic would suggest if compared with todays cameras.

[willeica]

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9 hours ago, 250swb said:

With Leica it was gradually becoming an anomaly, but the idea of the Barnack viewfinder/rangefinder combo wasn't yet dead or outdated if you consider the 1957 Nikon SP had a similar system but framelines for six lenses, and how long did it take for Leica to achieve that in the M series? Of course Nikon dropped the rangefinder camera soon after the 'F' SLR was released in 1959, but it was clearly an era when there was still some meat in the game for almost any experiment in 35mm for manufacturers. It was generally an exciting time but with a lot of soon to be dead ends, and I think Leica did have a lot of loyal users sold on Leica's own idea their camera was reliable, built for the future, and the best, so they were obliged to keep it going for a bit longer than commercial logic would suggest if compared with todays cameras.

And to add to that, there were a lot of people with collections of high quality LTM lenses from Leica and other manufacturers. Yes, you could use adapters, but there was less faffing about when mounting lenses. It was a transitional period and Leica was offering as many options as possible to its customers. The unfortunate thing, which nearly caused Leica’s downfall, is that the management at Wetzlar did not really grasp what was happening with the Nikon F and other high quality Japanese cameras. The issue of the day was more than just screwmount v bayonet mount and developments were happening very quickly, particularly as regards through the lens viewing and metering. I have a IIIg, but I’m not that fond of using it. I prefer using my earlier LTM cameras, my M3s or an early meterless  Nikon F. 

William 

[stray cat]

Here's a price list from a store selling Leicas from the May, 1957 issue of Popular Photography magazine. The IIIF and IIIG prices are listed as around 33% lower than the equivalent M3 specification:

 

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Edited April 7 by stray cat

[hepcat]

4 hours ago, stray cat said:

Here's a price list from a store selling Leicas from the May, 1957 issue of Popular Photography magazine. The IIIF and IIIG prices are listed as around 33% lower than the equivalent M3 specification:

 

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Thanks for finding this!   The ad shows lenses in Leica screw mount, Contax/Nikon, and Exacta/Contax D cameras.   That makes me wonder whether they were all OEM lenses, or even then, as an importer, they had someone in Japan manufacturing lenses for them in various mounts.

As an aside, Google Streets shows that 521 5th Ave in NYC no longer exists as a discrete address.  Things change in 65 years.

[zeitz]

38 minutes ago, hepcat said:

someone in Japan manufacturing lenses for them

After the War any patents on the Leica Thread Mount were vacated by the Allies.  Many optical houses in Japan and Germany made LTM lenses.  It was not necessary for Camera Import Corporation to have lenses made for them.  I suspect, but not really know, that Camera Import Corporation was a gray market importer, meaning they distributed cameras and lenses purchased overseas, not from the normal US importers, such as Leitz NY in the case of Leitz.

You may be interested in the book "Non-Leitz LEICA Thread-Mount Lenses - a 39mm Diversity" by Marc James Small.  It is a wonderful little book.

[nitroplait]

18 hours ago, hepcat said:

It has been reported that there was much consternation internally in Leitz about even introducing the M3.  The Barnack group insisted that the M3 would never sell, and the development of the IIIg coincided with the development of the M3.  Of course those working on the M cameras believed it superior to the Barnacks in every way, but at that point, thirty years of evolution of the Barnacks had that camera quite entrenched in the company's thinking.
 

Interesting perspective. A bone thrown to the, no doubt, respected Barnack group makes good sense when understanding the raison d'etre of this camera.

 

[Anbaric]

2 hours ago, hepcat said:

Thanks for finding this!   The ad shows lenses in Leica screw mount, Contax/Nikon, and Exacta/Contax D cameras.   That makes me wonder whether they were all OEM lenses, or even then, as an importer, they had someone in Japan manufacturing lenses for them in various mounts.

From another advert one manufacturer they imported was Zunow (Teikoku Kogaku):

https://www.pacificrimcamera.com/pp/zunowlensesrf.htm

https://www.cameraquest.com/zunow.htm

Zunow is known for the  50mm f/1.1, which is now a very rare and highly collectable (i.e. expensive) lens:

https://tahusa.co/lens-review/zunow-teikoku-kogaku-japan-50mm/

This is the lens they were pairing with Leica, Contax, Nikon and Canon bodies in the second advert. It's hard to read the text of the first advert, but one of the unnamed lenses may be a 50mm f/1.1, and there also appears to be a 35mm f/1.7, which would be consistent with Zunow.

Edited April 7 by Anbaric

[sandro]

Interesting question in an interesting thread! Here is a dutch price list of august 1958. Obviously the IIIG was the cheapest, but the difference in price with an M2 was not that huge. It is also interesting to wonder what caused the M3 to cost fl 170,- more that an M2. Prices here of course in Dutch guilders.

Lex 

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[jc_braconi]

25 minutes ago, sandro said:

Interesting question in an interesting thread! Here is a dutch price list of august 1958. Obviously the IIIG was the cheapest, but the difference in price with an M2 was not that huge. It is also interesting to wonder what caused the M3 to cost fl 170,- more that an M2. Prices here of course in Dutch guilders.

Lex 

 

There is a huge difference between them in number of pieces and finition.

[qqphot]

I usually pick up the IIIg instead of an M body because it's considerably less bulky but still has a parallax-corrected viewfinder with framelines. So that may have been a factor.

[luigi bertolotti]

On 4/6/2023 at 10:48 PM, 250swb said:

With Leica it was gradually becoming an anomaly, but the idea of the Barnack viewfinder/rangefinder combo wasn't yet dead or outdated ...

Well... several years ago (30 around), I asked to an old photographer of my town why he still used regularly a IIIG for his photojournalist assignements... he told me that he found "disturbing and distracting for composition" the central RF window in the VF of M cameras (adding that, anyway, with SLR it was even worse... he had a Leicaflex with just a 21 and a 250... 😉)

Edited April 7 by luigi bertolotti

[Michael Geschlecht]

8 hours ago, sandro said:

Interesting question in an interesting thread! Here is a dutch price list of august 1958. Obviously the IIIG was the cheapest, but the difference in price with an M2 was not that huge. It is also interesting to wonder what caused the M3 to cost fl 170,- more that an M2. Prices here of course in Dutch guilders.

Lex 

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Hello Sandro,

The largest portion of the difference in the prices of the M3 & M2 cameras was the cost difference between the different range/viewfinder systems.

The M3 (The first "M" camera.) 0.91X range/viewfinder system was found to be too costly to manufacture & was replaced by the optically different M2 (The second "M" camera.) 0.72X range/viewfinder which was less expensive to produce. The M2 range/viewfinder is the basis of the M4, the M5 & later "M" camera range/viewfinder systems.

Best Regards,

Michael

[williamj]

It's useful to remember that Leica was making the IIIf in batches of up to 35,000 before the M3 was launched, so it was an excellently selling camera. Using the cameraquest data as a guide I counted up the number of IIIg made between 1956 and 1960 and compared that to the number of M3 and M2 made in the same period. The usual caveats based in publicly available data apply to these counts.

Between 1956 and 1960 Leica made

IIIg: 44,025

M3: 108,620

M2: 39,000

In 1956 and 1957 they were still make the IIIg in batches of up to 5,000 cameras but after that the "big batches" were down to 1,500 items. The steam was going out of the market.

My conclusion is they knew there was still a market and could service it profitably. Had people continued to buy it in sufficient numbers they would have continued to make it. After all, they continued to make film cameras when everyone else stopped, no doubt because there was still a market for [extremely expensive] film cameras.

[hepcat]

16 hours ago, williamj said:

It's useful to remember that Leica was making the IIIf in batches of up to 35,000 before the M3 was launched, so it was an excellently selling camera. Using the cameraquest data as a guide I counted up the number of IIIg made between 1956 and 1960 and compared that to the number of M3 and M2 made in the same period. The usual caveats based in publicly available data apply to these counts.

Between 1956 and 1960 Leica made

IIIg: 44,025

M3: 108,620

M2: 39,000

In 1956 and 1957 they were still make the IIIg in batches of up to 5,000 cameras but after that the "big batches" were down to 1,500 items. The steam was going out of the market.

My conclusion is they knew there was still a market and could service it profitably. Had people continued to buy it in sufficient numbers they would have continued to make it. After all, they continued to make film cameras when everyone else stopped, no doubt because there was still a market for [extremely expensive] film cameras.

One could argue with some authority that the M sales killed the IIIg sales.  Using the numbers you provided, the M cameras outsold the IIIg by a margin of three to one; and while perhaps not all of those M buyers would have otherwise bought a IIIg had the M not come to market, it's a safe bet to say that some proportion of them would have.  Leica products were competing with other Leica products for market share, and the M cameras were just a better seller than the by-then almost fifty year old IIIg design.

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[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Everybody,

The 0.91X range/viewfinder M3 was introduced in 1954. This was a time period before more advanced computer technology allowed for the development of high quality wide angle lenses for 35mm photography. At that time, people who wanted to add high optical quality lenses to an interchangeable lens camera system were, to a great extent, looking to add medium long focus/telephoto lenses to the standard lenses. The M3 range/viewfinder was designed to operate at its best with a 90mm lens. 50mm lenses & 135mm lenses also operate very well with an M3 range/viewfinder.

The 0.72X viewfinder IIIg was introduced in 1956. It was designed with both a 50mm & a 90mm lens in mind. This was a significant upgrade from a 0.5X viewfinder IIIf which was intended for use with a 50mm lens.

The 0.72X range/viewfinder M2 was introduced in 1957. It accommodated the 50mm & 90mm lenses with a IIIf equivalent 0.72X magnification viewfinder & added to its viewfinder the increased angle of view of a 35mm lens. It also combined the rangefinder in the viewfinder window. This meant that an M2 replicated & improved on a IIIg in a number of categories. It was the M2 that did more to replace the IIIg than the M3 did.

With the advent of computerized design, etc. for help with designing improved wider angle lenses at the end of the 1950's: Coupled with the ascendency of single lens reflex cameras when using longer than medium long focus/telephoto lenses: Leitz  developed their range/viewfinder cameras (The M2 & its siblings.) primarily for use with wide angle to medium long focus/telephoto lenses. With their own versions of single lens reflex cameras (Leicaflex, etc.) primarily designed for normal to longer lenses.

Best Regards,

Michael

 

Edited April 9 by Michael Geschlecht