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

Leica M1

Ernst Leitz · Leica M mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, loaded through the base · 1959

Also known as: Leica M1 · Leitz M1 · ライカM1

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Button rewind Leica M 1959–1961 — No separate figure published
Lever rewind Leica M 1961–1964 — No separate figure published
Green paint Leica M 1959–1964 — Three blocks in the serial list — 50 in 1959, 75 in 1961 and 83 in 1964, so 208 cameras
Black paint Leica M 1964–1964 — One camera identified: serial 1185270
  1. Who ordered the green cameras, at least for 1961: the German navy. Leitz Photographica catalogued an olive M1, serial 1035947, engraved Bundeseigentum and delivered to Kiel on 25 October 1961, and states that 75 cameras of that specification — olive, with an MP top plate — went to Wilhelmshaven and Kiel in 1961. 75 is exactly the size of the 1961 green block in the Leica Wiki's serial list. The 1959 block of 50 and the 1964 block of 83 remain unattributed.
  2. Auction result for that camera: €26,400 including buyer's premium at the 44th Leitz Photographica Auction, lot 179, against an estimate of €24,000–26,000, sold with a Summilux 50mm f/1.4 and its original green vulcanite intact. A green M1 is worth an order of magnitude more than a chrome one.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • No rangefinder patch: the finder shows bright frames and nothing to focus with
  • Frames for 35mm and 50mm only
  • Otherwise an M2 — same body, same shutter, same base loading

Button rewind:

  • A button, not a lever, to release the film for rewinding

Lever rewind:

  • Rewind release lever

Green paint:

  • Green paint in place of chrome

Black paint:

  • Black lacquer

Serial-range notes

966730
The change from button rewind to lever rewind.
956865 and 956889
Flagged inside an M1 block as M2 cameras with button rewind — two rangefinder cameras inside a run of finderless ones.
1185001–1195000
A 10,000-number M4 block printed at the end of the M1's serial list, containing the single black-paint M1 at 1185270.
950001–1195000
28 rows, 1959–1964. The rows themselves sum to about 9,750 against the 9,650 the page prints — and that is with the 10,000-number M4 block at the end excluded, which is the trap in this table.

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film, loaded through the base
Finder
Viewfinder with bright frames for 35mm and 50mm; no rangefinder · 0.72× magnification · 35mm, 50mm framelines · automatic parallax correction · no rangefinder image
Shutter
focal plane, rubberised cloth · 1s – 1/1000 and B
Country
Germany

Figures we worked out rather than found: The three green-paint blocks total 208 cameras, about 2.2% of the model · 9,650 M1 bodies against roughly 93,000 M2s: the finderless M is one camera in ten

Where sources disagree

Total production
  • 9,650 cameras (Leica Wiki, production line)
  • The serial list's own blocks, which include a 10,000-number M4 range that is not M1 production

Better supported: 9,650

The list cannot be summed as printed: its final row belongs to the M4 and dwarfs the model it appears in.

What reviewers say

History

The M1 is an M2 with the rangefinder left out, and it exists for the same reason the Ic and If existed in the screw range: a large part of Leitz’s business was people bolting cameras to other equipment. On a microscope or a repro stand or behind a Visoflex mirror housing, the rangefinder is dead weight — the focusing is done by the apparatus. So the M1 has a viewfinder with bright frames for 35mm and 50mm, no patch to align, and everything else about an M2 unchanged.

Leitz built 9,650 of them between 1959 and 1964, about one for every ten M2s. Early cameras release the film for rewinding with a button; from serial 966730 that becomes a lever. Three blocks totalling 208 cameras were painted green — 50 in 1959, 75 in 1961, 83 in 1964 — and the Leica Wiki records the blocks without saying who ordered them, which on a technical camera of this period usually means a public service or a large institution. One black-paint M1 is identified, at serial 1185270, with no block or quantity behind it.

The serial list carries the family’s usual crossovers, and this one is instructive about how these tables work. Two cameras inside an M1 block, 956865 and 956889, are flagged as M2s with button rewind — rangefinder cameras sitting in a run of finderless ones. And the list ends with a 10,000-number block from 1185001 that belongs to the M4, printed here because the single black M1 falls inside it. Anyone adding up the rows to check the 9,650 will get a number ten thousand too large.

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 M1
Leica M1 — Rama, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 fr)
Leica M1
Leica M1 with a Summicron — pjt56, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $1,700 across 12 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $1,000–$2,000). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $1,700.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$1,700$1,000–$2,00012
2026-09-06$1,700$1,000–$2,00012

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

Show 27 more listings

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

Related: Leica M2 · Leica M3 · Leica MD

Sources (4)

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.