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

Leica M4-2

Ernst Leitz Canada · Leica M mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, loaded through the base · 1977

Also known as: Leica M4-2 · Leitz M4-2 · ライカM4-2

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Black chrome Leica M 1977–1980 — About 15,000 cameras (Leica Wiki)
Gold Leica M 1979–1980 — About 1,000 cameras, in blocks of 500, 500 and 2
Ernst Leitz Canada, first block Leica M 1977–1977 — 100 cameras dated 7 December 1977
  1. The gold cameras have a reason: they are the Oskar Barnack centenary edition, 1,000 pieces marking a hundred years since Barnack's birth in 1879, each carrying a special number of the form 100-xxxx on the top plate and sold as a set with a gold-plated Summilux-M 1.4/50mm. Leitz Photographica Auction 47, lot 181, sold an unused set for €5,400 including buyer's premium.
  2. An olive M4-2 exists and is not in the model lists. Leitz Photographica Auction 45, lot 120, catalogued no. 1530024 of 1980, with a matching olive Summicron 2/50mm, as made for the Tank Division of the Israeli Army — "only a few examples are known to exist; most probably, none of them left the factory". It made €28,800 including buyer's premium against a €40,000–50,000 estimate.
  3. The first batch is identifiable from the outside. Leitz Photographica Auction 45, lot 118, describes no. 1468059 as carrying a red Leitz logo, "Wetzlar, Made in Canada" on the top plate and "Made by Leitz Canada" on the back; it was estimated at €4,500–5,500 and did not sell.
  4. Ryan HK's review lists the Midland cost reductions the specification does not: a plastic covering instead of vulcanite, black chrome instead of black enamel, and a larger Leitz stamp where the M4 carries the Leica script. The two most often repeated — steel gears in place of brass, "as they had to be to withstand the winder", and a printed rather than engraved frame-counter disc — are not in the review but in a reader's comment under it, from Mark Kronqust, who bought his M4-2 new.
  5. Leica Camera AG's own timeline now credits Midland with the camera: after the M5 "is met with relatively weak demand", "thanks to the development of the M4-2 by Ernst Leitz Canada, Leica was quickly able to build on its previous success." Wild Heerbrugg's chronology adds that the M4 tooling went to Midland "after Wetzlar had given its blessing and given 100% support to this venture", with Wetzlar specialists sent to start it.
  6. The "saved the M" story is Rolf Fricke's, from his tribute to Walter Kluck, president of Ernst Leitz Canada (LHSA, reprinted by the Photographic Historical Society of Canada): "Walter Kluck at Midland, Ontario saved the Leica M line from extinction in 1976." Fricke describes a Wetzlar decision to keep only the Leicaflex, and he gives Midland's own stake in reversing it: "Leica M lens production accounted for a major portion of Leitz Canada's business," and Kluck was "deeply concerned with protecting the jobs in the Midland plant." Plazonnet's French account of Fricke has Kluck asking the largest dealers to subscribe to an M4 run at a price he had calculated, and coming back with orders for nine thousand. No Leitz document of the Wetzlar decision has been found; it rests on the tribute.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • No self-timer: the front is plain where an M4 has the delayed-action lever
  • A motor coupling in the base as standard, which the M4 offered only on 855 special bodies
  • Made in Canada engraving

Black chrome:

  • Black chrome finish — the standard and near-universal version

Gold:

  • Gold plating

Ernst Leitz Canada, first block:

  • Canadian markings

Serial-range notes

1468001–1468100
The first 100 cameras, dated 7 December 1977: after the 1976 announcement and before the 1978 the Leica Wiki gives as the introduction. Leitz Photographica catalogues no. 1468059, from this batch, with a manufacture year of 1978.
1468101–1470000
Printed inside the M4-2's table as a 2,000-number block of Leica R3 Olive — an SLR, not an M — with two cameras inside it separately confirmed as M4-2s.
1932001–1932002
Two gold cameras numbered 400,000 above the rest 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, 135mm framelines · automatic, selected by the lens · automatic parallax correction
Shutter
focal plane, rubberised cloth · 1s – 1/1000 and B; flash sync at 1/50
Weight
545 g
Dimensions
138 × 77 × 36 mm
Country
Canada

Figures we worked out rather than found: About 16,000 cameras in three years, against 59,217 M4s in eight · The two outlying gold cameras account for the entire 1980–1993 span in the list

Where sources disagree

Introduction year
  • 1976 (Plazonnet, translating Fricke; German Wikipedia)
  • 1977 (English Wikipedia; Mike Evans, Leica Society International), and the first 100 bodies dated 7 December 1977 (Leica Wiki)
  • 1978 (Leica Wiki production era; Wild Heerbrugg chronology; camera-wiki)

Better supported: Announced 1976, first bodies December 1977

The three dates describe different events. Plazonnet's "disponible en 1976" cannot mean delivery, since no M4-2 is dated before December 1977; 1978 matches the manufacture year Leitz Photographica gives a camera from that first batch, no. 1468059.

Production span
  • 1978–1980 (Leica Wiki, production era)
  • 1977–1993, the range printed under its own serial list

Better supported: 1977–1980

The 1993 end date comes from the two stray gold cameras at 1932001–1932002, whose numbers belong to a much later period. One pair of cameras stretches the model's apparent life by thirteen years.

What reviewers say

History

The M4-2 is a restart. Leitz had discontinued the M4 in 1975 in favour of the M5, the M5 had not sold, and for two years there was no M camera in production at all. What brought it back was Ernst Leitz Canada at Midland, which announced the M4-2 in 1976 and dated its first hundred bodies 7 December 1977: the M4 again, with the self-timer removed, a motor coupling fitted as standard, and the whole camera made in Canada.

It was received badly and its reputation has taken forty years to recover. The complaints were the finish, the rangefinder, and the missing timer — an M4 that had lost something and gained a feature most photographers did not want. What it actually did was keep an M in production through the years after the M5, and everything since, the M4-P, M6, M7 and MP, descends from this camera rather than from the Wetzlar M4.

About 15,000 were built in black chrome and around 1,000 in gold. The first hundred are dated to a specific day, 7 December 1977, which falls between the 1976 announcement and the 1978 the Leica Wiki gives as the introduction.

Whether Midland saved the M depends on whose account is read. Rolf Fricke, in a tribute to Ernst Leitz Canada’s president Walter Kluck, says Kluck “saved the Leica M line from extinction in 1976” by campaigning for the M4 tooling to come to Canada after Wetzlar had decided to keep only the Leicaflex. Fricke is also candid that Midland had its own stake: M lenses were “a major portion of Leitz Canada’s business”, and Kluck wanted to protect the plant’s jobs. Wild Heerbrugg’s chronology says the tooling moved only after Wetzlar “had given its blessing and given 100% support”, and Leica’s own timeline now credits the M4-2 to Ernst Leitz Canada. What is documented is that Midland built the camera and that Wetzlar agreed to it; the Wetzlar decision to drop the M rests on the tribute.

Two entries in its serial list are worth reading as a warning about all of them. A 2,000-number block printed inside the M4-2’s table belongs to the Leica R3 Olive — an SLR entirely — and contains two confirmed M4-2s. And the final gold entry is a pair of cameras at 1932001 and 1932002, numbered some four hundred thousand above everything else in the model, which is why the list’s own date range reads 1977 to 1993 for a camera that was built in three years. Two cameras stretch the record by thirteen years.

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 M4-2
Leica M4-2 — Rama, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0 fr)
Leica M4-2
Leica M4-2 with the Winder M4-2 — Duc Ly, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $2,500 across 17 fixed-price listings on 2026-11-02 (middle half $1,900–$3,000). Tracked since 2026-09-26, 10 days: up 19% from $2,100.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-11-02$2,500$1,900–$3,00017
2026-10-26$2,500$1,900–$3,00017
2026-10-19$2,500$1,800–$2,90016
2026-10-18$2,500$1,900–$3,00017
2026-10-17$2,500$1,900–$3,00017
2026-10-16$2,500$1,900–$2,90017
2026-10-15$2,500$1,900–$2,90017
2026-10-14$2,500$1,900–$2,90019
2026-10-13$2,400$1,900–$2,50014
2026-09-26$2,100$1,800–$2,90016

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

Show 17 more listings

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Listings updated 2026-11-02. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Leica M4 · Leica M4-P · Leica M5 · Leica MD-2

Lenses for this body: Noctilux-M 50mm f/1 · Summicron 35mm f/2 (v3) · Summicron 35mm f/2 (v4, the bokeh king) · Tele-Elmarit-M 90mm f/2.8 (the thin one)

Sources (13)

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.