A snap-happy bidder paid a record $2.9 million for a camera — a 1923 Leica prototype, the auction house that sold the camera said Sunday.
The German-made equipment – serial number 122 of a prototype made two years before the upscale photography brand went to market — had a starting price of 400,000 euros, or $492,000, but phone bidding apparently went crazy.
Vienna’s Westlicht camera auction house said the hammer went down when a private collector in Asia made the final bid.
“The remarkable price certainly also reflects the camera’s fantastic original condition,” said a press release from Westlicht.
The sale beat the former $2.6 million record price paid for a camera that was set in 2012, also involving a Leica 0 Series at the same auction house.