Submitted by aarAdmin on Thu, 12/14/2023 - 00:00
Camera buffs flocked to Part II of Melbourne’s Michael camera museum collection sale on December 12 to snap up all 652 items offered by Leski Auctions at 727-729 High Street, Armadale.
There is no doubt the collection’s historical significance played an important part in the result.
Michaels Cameras, which had started trading more than 100 years ago as a pawnbroker and gunsmith business before morphing into a chemist shop that sold photographic equipment, was a household name to many collectors – simply because it had expanded to include the world’s largest private camera museum with more than 3000 items.
The sale of Part II of the collection was a similar resounding result to that of the initial auction in August last year.
The most expensive item was the Hasselblad Space Camera (lot 154), originally delivered in 1991 to America’s National Aeronautical and Space Agency for use by astronauts in photo training, that sold for $32,000, comfortably within its catalogue estimate.
A 1999 Hasselblad XPan 35mm rangefinder camera (lot 155) brought four times its lower estimate – going under the hammer for $8500.
Two commemorative Hasselblads – a 1985 2000FC/M ‘100 Years of Photography’ limited edition medium-format SLR (lot 152) and 1987 500C/M ‘Gold Exclusive’ limited edition (lot 153) – sold above estimate, the first for $3000 and the second for $4600.
A couple of Franke & Heidecke Rolleiflex cameras – one a 1983 Aurum edition gold-plated commemorative TLR version (lot 134) and the other a 1984 Platin edition (lot 135) – also achieved better than catalogue estimates with respective figures of $5000 and $6500.
Several circa 1935 Coronet Midget subminiature Bakelite box cameras in various colours (lots 56-59) sold well within or above catalogue estimates – the highest price being $460 for lot 57.
A circa 1923 Debrie Sept I spring-motor drive camera for still photography or cine sequences (lot 60) was a rare and unusual buy for $280 – along with a 1927 Agfa special edition ‘official boy scout’ Memo half-frame camera with Cinemat f6.3 lens (lot 1) for $550.
