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

Leica M2

Ernst Leitz · Leica M mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, loaded through the base · 1957

Also known as: Leica M2 · Leica M2-R · Leica KS-15 · Leitz M2 · ライカM2

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Without self-timer Leica M 1957–1968 — The majority: 5,900 of roughly 93,000 cameras have the timer
With self-timer (Vorlaufwerk) Leica M 1957–1968 — 5,900 cameras (Leica Wiki)
Black paint Leica M 1957–1968 — 1,851 cameras (Leica Wiki)
KS-15 (4), US Army Leica M 1965–1968 — 874 cameras, on a figure the Leica Wiki attributes to a forum contributor rather than to a record
M2-R Leica M 1968–1968 — No figure published
Grey (Luftwaffe) Leica M 1957–1968 — No figure published
Ernst Leitz Canada Leica M 1957–1968 — No figure published
NASA cameras Leica M 1957–1968 — No figure published
  1. Flints Auctions sold a KS-15 (4) outfit — body 1163358 of 1966, with the military case marked CONTRACT F42600-71-C-0974 — for £8,500 including buyer's premium at its Fine Photographica sale of 21 November 2023. Its catalogue puts the first production run at serials 1163150 to 1163770, about 870 bodies. That is an auction house's figure arrived at independently of the 874 the Leica Wiki attributes to a forum contributor, and the two agree to within four cameras.
  2. A black paint M2, serial 1005296, made €18,000 including buyer's premium as lot 100 of Leitz Photographica Auction 43. The catalogue describes it as one of an official batch of 250 black cameras with self-timer, numbers 1005101 to 1005350, delivered to Brandt of Stockholm on 28 September 1961 — a documented sub-batch inside the 1,851 black bodies recorded here.
  3. An unused black paint M2, serial 1031886 of 1961, went unsold against a €40,000–50,000 estimate as lot 98 of Leitz Photographica Auction 48, which puts a ceiling on what the finish is currently worth.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • 0.72× finder with bright frames for 35mm, 50mm and 90mm — the first Leica rangefinder to show a 35mm frame without goggles
  • A plain top plate: none of the M3's machined surrounds to the windows
  • An external frame counter that must be reset by hand after loading

Without self-timer:

  • Plain front, no delayed-action lever

With self-timer (Vorlaufwerk):

  • Delayed-action lever on the front

Black paint:

  • Black lacquer over brass

KS-15 (4), US Army:

  • US Army markings; fitted with the M4's rapid-loading spool

M2-R:

  • M4-style rapid-loading spool in an M2 body

Grey (Luftwaffe):

  • Grey finish, German air force

Ernst Leitz Canada:

  • Canadian markings; assembled at Midland

NASA cameras:

  • Modified for the US space programme

Serial-range notes

926001–1250200
93,221 numbers assigned across 101 rows, and the table's own date range is 1957 to 1970 — two years past the 1968 end the model page gives.
the black-paint blocks
Rows marked Schwz Lackiert total 1,851, matching the model page's black figure exactly.
the ELC blocks
Canadian-marked rows total 1,880 cameras — 2% of the model.

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film, loaded through the base
Finder
Combined viewfinder and coupled rangefinder, parallax corrected · 0.72× magnification · 35mm, 50mm, 90mm framelines · automatic, selected by the lens · automatic parallax correction
Base length
68.5 mm
Effective baselength
49.32 mm
Shutter
focal plane, rubberised cloth · 1s – 1/1000 and B
Country
Germany
Original price
About $250 for the body at launch against about $290 for the M3, the figures Casual Photophile gives; no period Leitz price list has been consulted directly.

Figures we worked out rather than found: 5,900 self-timer cameras out of about 93,221 — 6.3% of the model · The serial table's own span, 1957–1970, is two years longer than the production era the same page prints · 1,851 black bodies is 2.0% of the M2, against 0.57% for the M3

Where sources disagree

First year
  • 1958, the year it went on sale
  • 1957, when the Leica Wiki says production began

Better supported: 1957 for manufacture, 1958 for sale

The same distinction the Barnack entries draw: building and selling are different dates.

What reviewers say

History

The M2 was built to sit under the M3 and ended up outliving its logic. Leitz took the M3, simplified the top casing, replaced the self-resetting frame counter with an external dial you reset by hand, deleted the self-timer, and — the decision that mattered — redesigned the rangefinder optics to 0.72× magnification so that a 35mm frame would fit inside the finder. The M3 could not show 35mm at all; you fitted goggled lenses to fool its frame selector. The M2 simply had the frame.

For a reportage photographer in 1958 that settled the argument. A wider finder loses focusing precision — 0.72× against 0.91× drops the effective baselength from about 62mm to about 49mm, which matters on a fast 50 or a 90 — but it gains the focal length most of them worked in. Every M that followed took the M2’s side: the M4, M6, M7 and MP all carry a 35mm frame, and none has ever returned to the M3’s magnification as standard.

Roughly 93,221 numbers were assigned across the run, about 82,000 of them chrome and 1,851 black paint, which makes a black M2 both commoner and proportionally twice as likely as a black M3. Only 5,900 cameras have the self-timer that was left out at launch and added later as an option.

The interesting M2s are at the edges. A grey Luftwaffe version exists. Some were modified for NASA, which the Leica Wiki lists without saying what was modified or what flew. And in the Vietnam era the US Army bought the KS-15 (4), an M2 fitted with the rapid-loading spool from the M4 — a camera combining the older body with the newer camera’s one genuine convenience. The figure of 874 comes from a forum contributor by the Leica Wiki’s own attribution, so it is collector research rather than a record. Its civilian equivalent, the M2-R, was sold after production had officially finished.

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 M2
Leica M2 — Lëa-Kim Châteauneuf, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Leica M2
Leica M2 with the Summaron 35mm — Les Meloures at Luxembourgish Wikipedia, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $2,100 across 42 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $1,700–$2,500). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $2,100.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$2,100$1,700–$2,50042
2026-09-06$2,100$1,700–$2,50048

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

Show 117 more listings

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

Related: Leica M1 · Leica M3 · Leica M4

Lenses for this body: Elmar 5cm f/2.8 · Elmarit-M 135mm f/2.8 (v1, with spectacles) · Elmarit-M 135mm f/2.8 (v2, 1964) · Elmarit 28mm f/2.8 (v1, 1965) · Elmarit 9cm f/2.8 · Noctilux 50mm f/1.2 · Summaron 3.5cm f/2.8 · Summaron 3.5cm f/3.5 · Summicron 35mm f/2 (v1, eight elements) · Summicron 35mm f/2 (v2) · Summicron 50mm f/2 (v1 collapsible · v2 rigid and Dual Range) · Summicron 90mm f/2 (v1, 1957) · Summilux 35mm f/1.4 (v1, steel rim) · Summilux 50mm f/1.4 (v1, 1959) · Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 (v2, 1961) · Super-Angulon 21mm f/4 · Tele-Elmarit 90mm f/2.8 (the fat one)

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.