A screw-mount Leica is the cheapest way to own the thing itself rather than a descendant of it, and the thread was never patented, so the same body takes Canon, Nikkor, Zeiss and Soviet glass. These picks stay with Leitz’s own lenses because the guide is about the system; the other makers are in the same section and several are better value still.
Stories · Buyer's guides · Leica screw mount
Where to start with a screw-mount Leica
The collapsible Elmar, the Summitar that became the Summicron, and a 1931 f/1.9 that few have seen.
Lenses
Entry level — the cheapest way in that is still the real thing
Elmar 5cm f/3.5
The lens the Leica was built around, made for thirty years in numbers no other Leitz lens approached. It collapses into the body so the camera fits a coat pocket, and a clean coated example asks less than a filter for a modern Summilux.
Asking today: around $400 (middle half $300–$550) — median of 57 fixed-price USD listings on 2026-09-11
Also consider Summaron 3.5cm f/3.5 .
Best value — the most lens or camera for the money
Summitar 5cm f/2
Leitz's f/2 from 1939 to 1955 and the direct ancestor of the Summicron: seven elements, coated after the war, and a look at f/2 that no digital-era lens gives. The Summicron that replaced it asks three times the price for a sharper corner.
Asking today: around $400 (middle half $360–$540) — median of 47 fixed-price USD listings on 2026-09-11
Also consider Summicron 50mm f/2 (v1 collapsible · v2 rigid and Dual Range) .
Collector level — the one the reference books are about
Hektor 7.3cm f/1.9
Max Berek's fast portrait lens of 1931, in black and nickel and later chrome, made in the low thousands and rarely seen whole with its hood and caps. Soft and bright wide open, and among the earliest fast telephotos anyone sold for 35mm film.
Asking today: around $2,000 (middle half $1,700–$2,200) — median of 10 fixed-price USD listings on 2026-09-11
Also consider Thambar 9cm f/2.2 .
Bodies
Entry level — the cheapest way in that is still the real thing
Leica IIIf
The most common screw-mount Leica and the last with a separate rangefinder window: flash synchronisation, a shutter to 1/1000, and more repairers who know it than any other Leica. Red-dial and black-dial versions are on the page; both are the sensible first Leica.
Asking today: around $480 (middle half $400–$620) — median of 83 fixed-price USD listings on 2026-09-11
Also consider Leica IIIc .
Best value — the most lens or camera for the money
Leica IIIa (Model G)
The first Leica with a 1/1000 shutter, from 1935, in a body that is smaller than the IIIf and asks the same money. Ninety thousand were made, and most have been serviced at least once since the war.
Asking today: around $470 (middle half $360–$700) — median of 37 fixed-price USD listings on 2026-09-11
Also consider Leica III (Model F) .
Collector level — the one the reference books are about
Leica I (Model A)
The 1925 camera that made 35mm film a serious medium, with a fixed lens that changed from Anastigmat to Elmax to Elmar as Leitz learned to make it. The lens on the front dates the camera, and the page walks through the sequence and the numbers.
Asking today: around $1,700 (middle half $1,100–$2,200) — median of 11 fixed-price USD listings on 2026-09-11
Also consider Leica IIIg .
The picks and the reasons are editorial and AI-written from the family pages, which say where each claim comes from. The prices are read from the listings I scan on the day the page was built — a median of a handful of asking prices, not a valuation, and not what anything sold for. Updated 2026-09-07.