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

Leica IIIc

Ernst Leitz · LTM mount · 24×36mm on perforated 35mm cine film, 36 exposures · 1940

our own finding

Also known as: Leica IIIc · Leica IIIc K · Leica IIIc Luftwaffen-Eigentum · Leica IIIc WH · ライカIIIc

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Wartime production LTM 1940–1945 — No separate figure published
Military and agency markings LTM 1940–1945 — No figures published for any of the markings
Post-war LTM 1945–1951 — No separate figure published
Sharkskin covering LTM 1945–1951 — No figure published
  1. 133,626 cameras is this site's figure, and the best attested. It is not the only one: camera-wiki gives approximately 131,000 for serials 360,101–525,001, and the Leica Wiki's own serial list totals 138,228 assigned numbers — so the model page's total sits between the two rather than agreeing with either. Nothing consulted breaks any of them down by wartime versus post-war, by marking, or by covering, so none of the variants below carries a number.
  2. Camera-wiki, already among the sources here, gives a different total: approximately 131,000 cameras across serials 360,101 to 525,001. That is some 2,600 short of the 133,626 above, and neither source shows how its figure was arrived at.
  3. Camera-wiki does carry the K that the Leica Wiki's IIIc page does not: cameras marked with a K beside the serial number have shutter blind rollers running on ball bearings, and the letter abbreviates Kugellager, the German for ball bearing.
  4. Two Luftwaffen-Eigentum bodies at Leitz Photographica. Chrome no. 375858 of 1941, top plate engraved with contract reference Fl. 38079 and with a red shutter blind, realised EUR 3,360 including buyer's premium at Auction 45, lot 229, against an estimate of EUR 1,400 to 1,600. Chrome no. 364212 of 1940, recorded as delivered to Luft Berlin on 4 October 1940, realised EUR 1,320 at Auction 44, lot 174.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • One-piece die-cast body: the top plate and rangefinder housing are the same casting, with no seam between them
  • 136mm long against 133mm for every earlier Leica — the easiest measurement to check
  • Four-screw accessory shoe

Wartime production:

  • A small step under the advance-rewind lever, which post-war bodies lack
  • Grey paint on some cameras in place of chrome

Military and agency markings:

  • W.H. engraved — Wehrmacht Heer, the German army
  • Luftwaffen-Eigentum — property of the air force
  • Leitz-Eigentum (L.E.) — property of Leitz itself, not of any service
  • N-L for Odin, the Leitz agency in the Netherlands

Post-war:

  • No step under the advance-rewind lever
  • The earliest post-war cameras have notably poorer chrome plating

Sharkskin covering:

  • A coarse, pebbled vulcanite in place of the usual fine grain — collectors call it sharkskin, abbreviated SH

Serial-range notes

509174
Singled out by the Leica Wiki as a black-painted IIIc among a run that is otherwise chrome.

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on perforated 35mm cine film, 36 exposures
Finder (main)
Optical viewfinder · no rangefinder image
Finder (rangefinder)
Coupled split-image rangefinder, eyepieces close together as on the IIIb
Shutter
focal plane, cloth, ball-race mounted · 1s – 1/1000 and Z, split at 1/20
Dimensions
136 × 39 × 65 mm
Country
Germany

What reviewers say

History

The IIIc is the industrial turn. Every Leica before it was built up from a shell with a separate top plate and a rangefinder housing fixed on; the IIIc is one aluminium die casting with the top and the rangefinder cover integral to it. The camera is about 3mm longer as a result — 136mm against 133 — and that measurement is the most reliable way to tell a IIIc-family body from a IIIb without opening anything. Every screw Leica that follows, up to the IIIg of 1960, uses this casting.

It is also the Leica that was in production through the war, and the markings are where its history sits. Bodies leave Wetzlar engraved W.H. for the army, Luftwaffen-Eigentum for the air force, and Leitz-Eigentum for Leitz’s own stock — the last two differing by an abbreviation on cameras whose market values are nothing alike, which is exactly the situation forgers work in. A few carry N-L for Odin, the Leitz agency in the Netherlands. Wartime bodies keep a small step under the advance-rewind lever that post-war ones do not have, and some are painted grey rather than chromed.

After 1945 the same casting comes back with the step gone and, on the first group, chrome plating visibly worse than Leitz would have accepted before the war — a dating marker, not a fault. Some post-war cameras wear a coarse pebbled vulcanite that collectors call sharkskin. None of these variations has a published production figure. The only number anyone gives is the model total, 133,626, and for once the Leica Wiki’s own serial list does not contradict it.

The K cameras are wartime grey bodies whose shutter blind rollers turn on ball bearings, so the axes run without grease and cannot seize in the cold — which is the point of them, on a camera issued to men fighting in Russian winters. What the letter stands for is the part still argued over: camera-wiki reads K as Kugellager, ball bearing; Leitz Photographica reads it as Kältefest, cold-resistant; Leica Historica offers both. The Leica Wiki’s IIIc page mentions none of this, though it lists the grey bodies from the same serial block, 388927–397650, that the K cameras occupy.

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 IIIc
Leica IIIc, 1940, with the red shutter curtain — sébastien amiet;l, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Leica IIIc
Leica IIIc chrome, serial 384761, 1941 — Kameraprojekt Graz 2015, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Leica IIIc
HafenCity, Hamburg — shot on a Leica IIIc with a Summitar 5cm (NAC) — NAC, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $650 across 78 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $400–$1,500). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $650.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$650$400–$1,50078
2026-09-06$650$400–$1,50078

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

Show 93 more listings

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

Related: Leica Ic · Leica IIc · Leica IIIb · Leica IIId · Leica IIIf

Lenses for this body: Hektor 13.5cm f/4.5 · Summarex 8.5cm f/1.5 · Summitar 5cm f/2 · Xenon 5cm f/1.5

Sources (7)

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.