Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Leica I (Model C)

Ernst Leitz · LTM mount · 24×36mm on perforated 35mm cine film, 36 exposures · 1930

Also known as: Leica I Model C · Leica C · Leica I (C) · ライカI型C

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Non-standardised mount (1930 – early 1931) LTM 1930–1931 — 2,995 cameras (Leica Wiki)
Standardised 39mm mount (1931 onward) LTM 1931–1933 — 7,231 cameras (Leica Wiki)
Model C Luxus LTM 1930–1931 — Three cameras (Leica Wiki)
  1. Prices realised, all in one sale: at Leitz Photographica Auction 30, lot 14 — a factory conversion of a very early Model A to Model C Non Standard, no. 2235, dated 1926/30, with its matching Elmar 3.5/50mm, condition B+ — made €3,840 including buyer's premium against a €3,000–3,500 estimate, while three standardised Model C bodies in the same auction (lots 16, 17 and 18) made €2,160, €660 and €600. The scarcer non-standardised camera, still paired with the lens it was fitted to, outsold all three.
  2. A Model C Luxus with documented provenance, against the entry's caution that any example should be treated as a forgery until the provenance says otherwise: Leitz Photographica lot 15 at the same Auction 30, no. 48417 of 1930, green reptile leather, gold-plated lens cap and gold-plated FODIS rangefinder, with an Elmar 3.5/50mm engraved '417' on the barrel. Delivered as a Non Standard Luxus in 1930, rebuilt to a II Mod. D in November 1932 and to II syn in 1961, with the original Mod. C top plate, base plate and other parts kept at the factory and later reassembled into the camera offered. Catalogued with an expertise by Ottmar Michaely of July 2007 drawing on the Leitz archive and on the estate notes of the collector Willi Thurau. Estimated at €22,000–25,000, started at €12,000, unsold.
  3. The '417' engraved on that Luxus camera's Elmar, against a body serial of 48417, is a second and independent instance of the matched-pair marking the entry describes — the last three digits of the camera's own serial, carried on the lens.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Interchangeable screw-mount lens where the Model A has one fixed to the body
  • No rangefinder: the FOFER and later accessory rangefinders sit in the shoe
  • Black enamel with nickel fittings throughout the run

Non-standardised mount (1930 – early 1931):

  • No O engraved on the lens flange
  • Each lens carries the last three digits of its own camera's serial on the focusing collar — fitted to any other body, it will not focus correctly

Standardised 39mm mount (1931 onward):

  • A letter O engraved on the lens flange — the mark that the body is built to the common flange distance
  • Takes any 39mm Leitz lens, and every screw lens made since by anyone

Model C Luxus:

  • Gold plating with calfskin covering

Serial-range notes

to 60500
The Leica Wiki puts the changeover to the standardised mount at serial 60500 — the same number it gives as both the last non-standard and the first standard camera.
34818–60000
This block appears on both the Model A and the Model C serial lists. The two models were in production together, and the lists do not separate them.

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on perforated 35mm cine film, 36 exposures
Finder
Optical viewfinder, no rangefinder · no rangefinder image
Shutter
focal plane, cloth · 1/20 – 1/500 and Z (time)
Designed by
Oskar Barnack — camera
Country
Germany

Figures we worked out rather than found: 2,995 + 7,231 = 10,226 — the two variant counts sum to the printed total · The serial list's blocks (500 + 10,700) total 11,200, which exceeds that by 974

Where sources disagree

Total production
  • 10,226 cameras — 2,995 non-standard plus 7,231 standard (Leica Wiki, model page)
  • 11,200 serial numbers assigned (Leica Wiki, its own serial list)
  • Just over 10,000, from serials 37,280 to 99,755 (camera-wiki)

Better supported: 10,226

The Leica Wiki's two figures are 974 apart on the same page. camera-wiki's total agrees roughly with the first but its serial range is far wider at both ends than either list, and it overlaps blocks the same sources assign to the Model A and the Standard.

Where the standardised mount begins
  • Serial 60500 (Leica Wiki)
  • 1931, without a serial (camera-wiki)

The Leica Wiki's serial list gives 60500 as the end of one block and the start of the next, so the camera at exactly 60500 is claimed by both.

What reviewers say

History

The Model C is where the Leica becomes a system. The camera is otherwise the Model A — same shape, same absent rangefinder, same reliance on a scale and a good eye — but the lens now unscrews, and Leitz began selling 35mm, 50mm and 135mm lenses to go in front of it, adding a 9cm Elmar, a 10.5cm Elmar and the fast 7.3cm Hektor over the following two years.

For the first year it was a system in name more than in practice. Leitz had not yet held the distance from film to lens flange to a tight enough tolerance for lenses to be interchangeable between bodies, so each lens was fitted and shimmed to one camera at the factory and engraved on its focusing collar with the last three digits of that camera’s serial. Roughly 2,995 cameras were sold this way. Put such a lens on another body and it will mount, and it will not focus where the scale says. Ninety years of separation have parted most of these pairs, and a non-standardised Model C offered with a lens whose numbers do not match the body is, optically speaking, a camera and an ornament.

In 1931 Leitz fixed the flange distance and engraved a letter O on the flange of every body built to it. That mark is the whole reason the Leica thread exists as a standard: from that point any 39mm Leitz lens fitted any O-marked body, and because Leitz never patented the thread, so did every screw lens the rest of the industry went on to make — Canon, Nikon, Minolta, KMZ, FED. The Model C ran until 1933 with about 7,231 cameras built to the standard, and was replaced by the Leica Standard.

The counting is a mess, and honestly so. The Leica Wiki gives 10,226 cameras and, immediately below it on the same page, a serial list that totals 11,200. camera-wiki says “just over 10,000” but quotes a serial range from 37,280 to 99,755, which is wider at both ends than the blocks the Leica Wiki assigns and overlaps runs the same sources give to the Model A and the Standard. All three models were in production together for part of this period, and the lists do not always separate them. The changeover serial has the same problem in miniature: 60500 is printed as both the last non-standardised camera and the first standardised one.

Expand Collapse

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $1,700 across 5 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-06 (middle half $1,700–$2,300). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Show 5 more listings

eBay links are affiliate links. If you buy through one, Glass Bodies earns a small commission from eBay at no cost to you. It does not change which listings appear, their prices or their order — those come from the search and the sort described above.

Listings updated 2026-09-05. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Leica I (Model A) · Leica II (Model D) · Leica Standard (Model E)

Lenses for this body: Elmar 3.5cm f/3.5 · Elmar 5cm f/3.5 · Hektor 5cm f/2.5 · Hektor 7.3cm f/1.9

Sources (6)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this camera, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.