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

Leica IIIb

Ernst Leitz · LTM mount · 24×36mm on perforated 35mm cine film, 36 exposures · 1938

Also known as: Leica IIIb · Leitz Leica IIIb · ライカIIIb

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Chrome LTM 1938–1946 — Effectively the whole run of 32,705
Black lacquer LTM 1938–1940 — Five cameras, according to forum research cited by the Leica Wiki
Factory flash synchronisation LTM 1946–1955 — No figure published
  1. A third figure for the black IIIb, from an auction catalogue rather than a forum. Leitz Photographica Auction 32, lot 31 — a black paint IIIb, serial 289419 of 1939, with an unnumbered nickel Elmar 3.5/50mm and ever-ready case — states that "only four were officially produced", one fewer than the five the Leica Wiki and camera-wiki both report. The catalogue describes this body itself as an early custom painted one; estimated at €1,000–1,200, it realised €7,800 including buyer's premium.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • The two eyepieces sit close together — near enough to move between with a shift of the eye rather than of the head
  • Dioptre correction on a lever running concentrically around the rewind knob, not on a separate lever beside the eyepiece
  • A four-screw, spring-mounted accessory shoe

Chrome:

  • Chrome-plated brass top plate, base and knobs

Black lacquer:

  • Black lacquer — on a model that was otherwise chrome throughout

Factory flash synchronisation:

  • A synchronisation socket added to a body that left the factory without one

Serial-range notes

240001–241000 and 242001–243000
The two opening blocks are dated 1937-38, a year before the model's stated introduction — the usual gap between a camera being built and being sold.
1939–1940 blocks
Fifteen consecutive blocks of exactly 1,000 numbers run through 1939 and 1940. Round thousands on this scale are allocations rather than counts of finished cameras.

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on perforated 35mm cine film, 36 exposures
Finder (main)
Optical viewfinder · no rangefinder image
Finder (rangefinder)
Coupled split-image rangefinder, eyepiece set close to the viewfinder, dioptre ring around the rewind knob
Shutter
focal plane, cloth · 1s – 1/1000 and Z, split at 1/20
Dimensions
133 × 39 × 65 mm
Country
Germany

Figures we worked out rather than found: 32,705 − 30,850 = 1,855, the shortfall the Leica Wiki's editor notes · Fifteen consecutive 1,000-number blocks in 1939–40 account for roughly half the model

Where sources disagree

Total production
  • 32,705 cameras (Leica Wiki, model page)
  • 30,850, being the numbers its own serial list accounts for — the page's editor notes the production figure is 1,855 higher

Better supported: Unresolved, and the page says so

This is the one Barnack model whose source flags its own discrepancy in the production line itself rather than leaving a reader to find it. The direction is the opposite of the Standard's, where the list overshoots the total.

Years of production
  • 1938–1946 (Leica Wiki)
  • 1938–1941 (camera-wiki's screw-mount overview)

The serial list runs into the war years and stops; whether cameras were completed after 1941 from parts, and whether those should count as production, is the question behind the two dates.

What reviewers say

History

The IIIb is the least visible upgrade in the screw range and the one a photographer notices most. Since 1932 every Leica had made you focus through one window and frame through another an inch away, which means lifting your eye off the camera between the two operations. The IIIb moves them together. The dioptre adjustment moves too, from a lever beside the eyepiece to a ring running around the rewind knob, and the accessory shoe is remounted on four screws and a spring. Nothing about the picture changes. Everything about the sequence of taking it does.

It is also the last Barnack built the old way, from a top plate and a body shell assembled together. The IIIc that followed in 1940 is a single die casting, slightly longer, and every screw Leica after it is built on that casting. That makes the IIIb the end of a line rather than a step in one, which is part of why it ran for only a few years and why 32,705 cameras is a small number beside the IIIa’s ninety thousand.

Its production record is the cleanest example of the problem running through this whole family, because the source flags the problem itself. The Leica Wiki prints 32,705 cameras and then, in the same line, an editor’s note that this is 1,855 more than the serial list below accounts for. On the Standard the same wiki has the opposite trouble, a list that overshoots the stated total by twelve thousand. Neither is reconciled anywhere consulted. The 1939 and 1940 rows suggest why: fifteen consecutive blocks of exactly one thousand numbers, which is what an allocation looks like, not what a count of finished cameras looks like.

Two footnotes for anyone buying. Five black IIIbs are said to exist, a figure that comes from collector discussion rather than a ledger and that the Leica Wiki is careful to attribute — any black one should be assumed repainted until its papers say otherwise. And some IIIb bodies carry flash synchronisation added by Leitz after the war, which makes them modified cameras rather than a variant: the same camera, changed later, by the people who made it.

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.

Photographs

Leica IIIb
Leica IIIb — ElioAngelo, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Leica IIIb
Leica IIIb, 1940, top plate — sébastien amiet;l, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $600 across 13 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $550–$900). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: down 22% from $760.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$600$550–$90013
2026-09-06$760$550–$92013

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 2026-09-11. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Leica IIIa (Model G) · Leica IIIc

Lenses for this body: Xenon 5cm f/1.5

Sources (5)

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.