Leica is celebrating the 70th anniversary of the M rangefinder camera, but the most precious gift it’s giving for the occasion is for only 250 rich people and costs $22,995. The ludicrously expensive Leica M Edition 70 set includes a platinum-plated Leica M-A 35mm film camera with Leicavit fast winder, a matching 50mm APO-Summicron-M f/2 lens, and a metallic film container with a roll of black-and-white film.
Yes, the film container is also platinum, and yes, that’s completely ridiculous.
This anniversary edition commemorates when the Leica M3 was released in 1954 as the first M camera. Leica goes to great lengths to honor the M3 and the brand’s legacy just about whenever it can. Back in 2014, the Leica M Edition 60 did the same thing to celebrate the 60th birthday of the M3, but that model was a bit more bold (and polarizing), being the first digital M to remove the rear LCD for a quasi film-like experience. That “feature” became more readily available in standard editions like the M-D (Typ 262), M10-D, and most recently the M11-D.
The new M Edition 70 seems much safer, with its lower production run and rehashing of the Leica M-A film camera that’s been around since 2014. The real devil in the details here is the Leicavit, an old-timey accessory from the heyday of film rangefinders that’s been extinct for years. It’s basically an alternate bottom plate for the camera, housing a hidden lever that can be used to advance the film after a shot using your left hand.
I’ve never personally used one, but the premise was that it’s faster and slightly more discreet than moving your right hand from the shutter to operate the regular advance lever with your thumb. I’m sure there’s a reason this wasn’t a widely adopted accessory, but Leica fans lap this nerdy stuff up. (I’m obviously speaking / confessing from experience here.)
So maybe the M Edition 70 is really a test to bring back the Leicavit as a standard accessory, like how the M60 was a test bed for screenless digital cameras or how the old M9 Titanium experimented with LED-illuminated frame lines. But one thing’s for sure: the M Edition 70 is both lovely and completely ridiculous. It’s another chance for Leica to milk money out of its rich whales for nearly six million dollars in revenue to fund whatever its next quirky idea is, but boy, is it hard not to enjoy looking at purty pictures of it.