Are Vintage Cameras Good ASSETS To Own?

[Music] Hey everybody, this is Josh Lehrer from Lancaster, Miami, and one of the coolest parts about my job is the fascinating people that I get to meet who sometimes will just walk in off the street with something really cool. Sometimes not only is the camera cool, but the owner of the camera is cool. I was pleasantly surprised when Mr. Waterfall himself, Kevin O'Leary, came to see me, not just to say hello, but to bring me an absolutely incredible piece of history.

Hey, Mr. Wonderful here! Now, I've got a story about history. I love cameras. I've been trying to be a professional photographer my whole life. Haven't quite got there yet, but I started buying cameras way back, way back. First were Russian cameras; couldn't afford anything else. But as I got a little farther along, I got into Leica. Now, Leica is for photographers el supremo—the M3, the M6. These are legendary cameras. But way, way back, here's where the history comes in.

Years ago, decades ago, I bought a Leica M3 in a box, supposedly never used, and then I forgot about it. I stuck it in a safe for a really long time. I was rummaging through the safe looking at some of my watches the other day, and I saw the corner of the case. It was my old buddy, the Leica M3. Now luckily, I live in Miami, so one of the greatest Leica stores on earth is here. Josh Lehrer's a legend, right? A little bit, a little bit legend. He's a legend; he knows more about Leica than an encyclopedia does.

So I came screaming in here to get him to look at this camera and tell me:
A. Is it real?
B. Has it ever had a roll of film put through it?
And C. Most important, because I am Mr. Wonderful—how much is it worth?

Okay, Josh baby, what's the story on the Leica M3?

So this is the first M camera. This is where Leica M begins, 1954. And what's interesting about the M3 is it is also the most produced M camera they made—right around a quarter million of them, 250,000. So it's not—

Is that really? That's very special if it's never been used, correct? Because these cameras were never designed to be collectible or special; they were designed to be tools to be used. So when you see an M3 of this vintage, not only with all of its accoutrement—box, paperwork, warranty cards—but never being used, never being serviced, that's something special.

It's just—I mean this looks like the original box.

Yes, this is the original box. So this would have been sold as a kit. There are actually cameras they sold by themselves, and they sold a couple of kits, and this kit would have been from about 1959 or 1960 when the camera was produced. The lens is from 1958. This is what's known as a double stroke M3, which means it takes two advances of—

Right now, the M3's popularity has waned and has come back, and right now, it is absolutely a renaissance period for the M3, smoking hot! In other words, extremely so.

Okay, doubly so with a lens and the fact that this camera has never been used. Now, I can look at this camera. Now, how do I prove that it's never been used? Well, there's one giveaway beyond any other shadow of a doubt, which is the strap lugs. These are made from brass.

Yeah, that is an inherently soft metal.

Yeah, if I look at the camera—even if a strap had been on there once, you could tell there would be scratches, there would be nicks. These strap lugs are brand new. I have never seen a camera like this outside of the Leica museum in terms of never been used. Now, you can combine that with the fact that the camera actually has what's called the original L seal, which is at the 12 o'clock position on the lens mount. There's a wax seal with the Leica letter L that could only have been put on by the factory. If anyone ever serviced this, opened this up, or tinkered with it, that would have been destroyed.

And the moment of truth—it has the original L seal right there. It's not something I can see here, but it does have the original wax seal.

Wow, so this has never, ever—never—I doubt this has ever had a roll of film through it. The condition of this camera tells me that it not only was never used but it was cared for, because even the cameras that were put on a shelf tend to get scratched.

Well, it came with this invoice.

Yes, I mean this is from 1960, 14th of October. The camera was sold.

Your eyes are better than mine; what does that say?

So the camera was sold with the lens for $471, but it looks like this gentleman had a bit of a credit on file, so his net was about $300 and something dollars in 1960.

Okay, so what's it worth today? If I were to put this on the market, because somebody told me that these are really hot in Japan; they're hot all over the world. And you know, I wanted just to find out what I'm sitting on here.

Sure, a combination of the originality, the provenance of your ownership, the tenure of your ownership [with all of this]—I wouldn't ask less than $10,000 to $12,000 for this set, probably more because every day these are going up.

This reminds me of Antique Roadshow. This is the part where I go: Are you kidding? That's incredible! That's amazing!

Now what about the lens itself? I mean, is this valuable on its own?

The lens has a lot of value on its own. The value is in the set because this was sold together. The serial number of the lens and camera appear on the original purchase invoice, as well as all of the original paperwork. So we have the original paper—yes, but the most important documentation is the warranty card. This is actually the import certificate telling you it was an official Leica USA authorized import from Germany. And on the back, stapled, are the original warranty certificates with stamped serial numbers for the camera and the lens—

That of course. So would I need those in the old days to get it serviced or just to prove that it was real?

Well, to prove that it was real and also to get warranty service because when this was new, it would have come with some warranty—

Oh, four years or something?

Yeah, exactly.

Oh, so these are almost always thrown away. It's very rare to see these still with the camera.

And what's really interesting is you have the sort of quick start guide and the instruction manual.

Yeah, now a lot of people would take these and buy them on eBay and throw them in with the camera, but the way that you know these are original is because the year printed, which is here—'59—actually matches the year of the camera.

Wow, so these were original with—so that makes it even more valuable.

Oh, dramatically so. I mean, these cameras, just the body only, without any of this provenance and stuff, maybe $3,000 or $4,000.

Yeah, but when you start adding all this in, plus the never-used condition, plus the lens, the paperwork, we're five figures deep.

Ichi! That's fantastic news! You know, really, I stored this away for a long time thinking it's going to be valuable one day, but I never thought this much!

Now let's talk a little bit about this set of goggles. What's the story on this thing?

So one of the downsides of the M3 and kind of about rangefinders in general is you can only focus on this camera down to one meter, which if you want to do any kind of macro or close-up work is really not ideal. Yeah, so one way they got around that is with this lens called the dual range for two focus ranges. So this has macro; this is one of the only lens M lenses ever produced that actually has a macro capability. Essentially, the way it works is there are two ranges, two scales of focusing on the lens—one that goes from infinity to a meter, and one that goes from a meter to about half a meter, a little less.

What happens is normally if you had this lens attached to the camera and tried to focus closer than a meter, you would lose your focus calibration, so you couldn't actually focus—so hence the goggles!

Exactly. What the goggles do is they literally go over the rangefinder optical mechanism and allow you to focus all the way down to half a meter.

So how do you put that on?

Just to put it on after the lens.

Yeah, the lens always goes on by itself. So first you mount the lens, the red dot here. Then you put the lens in its macro position, which is you lift up and kind of—most people wouldn't know that intuitively.

No, I have people come into the store with these lenses and go, "I don't know how to get it into macro mode," and I said, "Ah, you have to lift it up!"

And that frees this little ball bearing here—yeah, you slide the goggles on, and once you do, you can actually now freely turn because when you don't have the goggles on, you can't activate.

And so it's now accurate. There's enough of a correction being done optically that you can use macro down to how close?

A little less than half a meter.

Okay, so I don't know what that is in inches.

These are always meters because they're German.

Right!

Now what's interesting too is this lens is still usable on a modern camera. The latest digital M, the M11, is actually the first digital M where this lens with the goggles has 100% compatibility.

Wow, so that makes this lens—

So you can put the goggles on the M11?

Yeah, brand new M11. I've tested this; you can use these goggles, and that's the first digital M you could do that!

Is that—did they build that in sort of for the heritage? Because how many people are actually going to have the goggles and have this lens? Not a lot!

It's more about the way the M11 is designed, and this is a byproduct of that. It wasn't the intent; it just so happens because the M11's light metering system has changed you can now use the dual range on the M11.

Interesting, but M11 is not really a rangefinder per se, right?

It is because you're—

But you can also see the image on the back.

You can, but the fundamental concept behind the design of every M ever made, including the M11 that came out this year, is based exactly around this mechanical mechanism. So when you use a rangefinder, if I taught you how to use this M3 and you mastered it, and I gave you an M11, you could get the same quality of photos.

But I'm crazy to put a roll of film through this!

I would not do that, Kevin, if I were you! Because, I mean, clearly. And if I wanted to sell it, I would work with you because you know where all the collectors are, right?

Correct. There's a certain type of person that buys a camera to use it and a certain type of person that buys it to collect it.

Yeah, there's some crossover there, but this would be sold to someone who is an enthusiast for the M3 looking for one of the best examples in the world.

Wow, that's really cool to know I own that—it's amazing!

So I should enjoy just taking it out, showing it to people and enthusiasts and saying, "Look, this is how this thing works!"

And it's—and the seal, I just learned about the L seal—that's kind of interesting, and there's not hardly a scratch on the thing. It is in amazing condition.

I have sold a couple hundred of these cameras over the years. I've studied the auctions where they come up for sale, and you see cameras that are nice, you see cameras that have the box, but it's very, very, very rare to have all of those stars aligned to have something this nice and this complete.

And how many of you seemed with all of this?

Two—really?!

Twelve years.

The reality is these are only going up in both collectibility and design.

So why would I sell? Why don't I just wait?

I should say with my estate...

Yeah, I don't think you would ever need to sell it. I don't think you ever should sell it because they will never make another camera like this, because this exists in its own little bubble of the Leica universe.

No, it's just fantastic! I mean, what I love about it, it looks so solid. I mean, they had such a vision back in the 50s on how to make these cameras because it looks like you could take it into war.

And in fact, it did go into war! This camera changed the landscape when it came out. In the 1950s, there was nothing else like it, and nobody really is able to sustainably make something like this.

So you need to wind it twice?

Yet! So one of the downsides of the camera never being serviced is there could be a little bit of dry lubricant in the gears. That's part of the charm; I would never—I would never mess with that.

This camera should never, in my opinion, have a roll of film through it.

Well, it looks like it looks like it never did.

No, I don't think so!

And this is a late example of the double stroke, 1959. So they started doing the double stroke in the 1960s.

The way you know that is the serial numbers over one million are all double stroke.

This is a serial number starting at 974, so it's a little bit older than that.

Excuse me, all single stroke, newer than a million—this is a very late example of a double stroke model.

So does that make it less or more valuable?

It really depends. If it was just a body by itself, it would make it a little bit less valuable.

Yeah, but because of the nature of the set and the completeness, that sort of offsets that.

And what advance did they make so it became a single stroke?

Well, the point of the double stroke is often debated. Some people say it's less wear and tear on the camera's gearing because it takes two shorter strokes to advance it. Other people say to build up less static charge inside of the camera body, because it's only a single—that's—

Well, if you do a single long stroke, the myth is that it builds up more charge, so that could, in fact, affect your film.

Correct!

Yeah, it's never really been agreed on why the double stroke or what benefits the double stroke really had. Nowadays, people like it just because of the nostalgic aspect and the additional mechanical process involved.

Could you put an M11 beside this just to see how much of the elements actually—

I'll grab a silver one!

Wow, it hasn't changed that much!

Not really, no. It's the same concept. They've done a couple of things better since then, but fundamentally it is still—

What does the M11 cost these days?

This is just about 9,000 for the bottom.

So basically, I could sell this and buy that?

You could. You could! Availability is tough on these, right?

Yeah, for now, new Leicas—there's always a lot of hype, but that will calm down eventually, and they'll be able to—the challenge is getting the sensor chips. Right?

Combination of factors—they're handmade; all the paint you see is hand-done; all the inlay is hand-done, so they're just not able to make enough.

Amazing! So people pay nine thousand dollars for a camera that basically you can't even see through the lens on? It's a rangefinder!

Well, there is live view now; that was one of the improvements they started about 10 years ago, so you're seeing the actual image—

Well, on the screen or through an optional finder you can now see through the lens, but the purists—guys with M3s, right?—they're going to use the rangefinder the way it was meant to be, which is through the optical viewfinder.

Incredible! And these can't even keep in stock at nine thousand dollars?

No, we have quite a lengthy waiting list, as does every other Leica dealer around the U.S.

Right! Okay, well fantastic! Look, I learned a lot here today. Is there anything I should do in terms of storage? Give us some advice.

And we've got all these papers and everything else; what's the game?

So for the paperwork, as you know, we bagged it all up individually. We didn't want any of the paperwork sitting on top of his other documents, right? And we sealed them in like Ziploc style.

And that's how, if it went to auction, it should be. Everybody should see that. It's insane!

Yes! The camera and lens should be stored separately in a humidity-controlled environment.

Yeah, so we don't want anything to get fungus or haze, anything like that. You don't want to have it in the box. Ideally, probably a good place is the same safe that has my watches in it, because climate control—the same kind of idea! Because it's a mechanical object, right?

And every now and then, you want to blow dust off of it, make sure it doesn't collect any dust, wipe it with like a soft microfiber cloth. You can apply a very light preservative to the leatherette covering to keep it from drying out. At this point, it's probably pretty dried out.

So the main thing it seems to me—I'm doing a single stroke and getting it—look, is this a single stroke?

Yeah, let's see—I wasn't able to advance it earlier.

Look at that! So this—what that means is this is an early single stroke.

So because it's under a million, so what did I say? 10 to 12 thousand?

Let's make that 15 thousand!

Yeah, how about that?

I just taught you something, John!

Look at that! That's amazing!

So does that make it more or less valuable?

More!

Wow, for sure! So it's a single stroke, very early!

Yeah, this is a very early single stroke because the one million serial numbers—you can look at that and know for sure.

I wasn't able to advance it, so I didn't know!

You got it loose, then you have the magic touch!

Yeah, that's amazing! Exactly! Well, how about that? You know, that is three to five thousand dollars of extra value, I think.

But really, the value comes from the condition and the completeness, and you've owned it for quite a while.

Yeah, I have. So that also adds to the value, but I don't think you should ever sell it.

No, I'm really falling in love with it, getting all the history and having—you know, somebody actually wrote this invoice with a pen! Like, think about that; that doesn't happen anymore!

What's funny is this was a sporting goods store.

Yeah?

Yeah, you bought this camera from—give me some fishing tackle, some worms, and a Leica! Seriously, it's quite remarkable! You could have walked into a sporting goods store and picked up this M3 50 dual range outfit, and the fact that you have the original invoice is remarkable!

Yeah, I remember buying it off a collector, and it was under a thousand dollars! It was so long ago; I was—I was just getting into photography! I think I was still in my teens; I'd worked all summer for that! And you know, brought it home, and I think my brother said, "Hey, bozo, why would you buy an old camera? Why don't you get a new one?"

Yeah. Well, well, it turned out to be a good investment! I will say the market in the last five years has really gone wild!

Yeah, people—I mean shameless watches!

Very true! People have started to appreciate that there isn't anything like this now, and never will be again!

Yeah, I love that! That's fantastic! Well, there you have it! We've both learned a lot today, and I love this stuff! I mean, just history is so interesting! But history that goes up in value—that's what Mr. Wonderful absolutely loves!

I'm falling in love with this camera all over again! Really, just beautiful!

Oh, it's so wonderful to hold it too; it's like a big chunk of metal here!

Yeah, they don't make them like that anymore!

Yeah, and it's so—that sounds just—that's gorgeous!

Well, thank you very much! I've learned a lot! If you like that video, wait till you see my next one! Don't forget to click right over here and subscribe!