White Paint M3??? Reach your own conclusions

Indeed it is! Robert Capa said "if your photos are not good enough, you're not close enough" and that prompted nature photographers to sneak up to the polar bears to get a great shot. The weapon of choice is naturally the ultra quiet Leica M3!

Problem is that polar bears have great eyesight for contrast to detect prey in the snow, which puts the photographers at risk with their black M3s in the snow. The white "Arctic Edition M3" is designed specially to resolve this problem, and issued to National Geographic photographers back in the mid-60s, along with modified lubrication and cloth shutters that work down to -30 degrees Celsius.

It's extremely rare, and this is the only mint example that has ever appeared. US$510 is a mad bargain... he should have asked for US$51,000!


maddoc said:
Is that the very rare "Arctic Edition" ? 😀
Click to expand...
 
maddoc said:
Is that the very rare "Arctic Edition" ? 😀
Click to expand...

You joke? Wait until the auction end to check the price.. 🙄

The next edition will be "Lilac Lillys", vulcanite replaced with velvet saturated with your favorite fragrance.
 
Is that the very rare "Arctic Edition" ?

Is that the very rare "Arctic Edition" ?

It certainty is. Charles Jessup, a National Geographic photographer, used a similar camera with a white paint lens and hood. His main criteria during the sixties was photographing wildlife in Alaska. Unfortunately, he's no longer among us but his pictures live on.
 
Why would someone go to all this trouble and then sell it? $500 for a good M3 is not expensive either.

I must say I am tempted to buy it. It will draw even more attention than my recovered in cobalt blue M2. And people tend to forget that it makes stellar pictures too 😀
 
Seems pretty well done!
I'd rather see a matte/semi-matte finish than glossy like this seems to be tough. Also, I imagine it will require a lot of attention not to get the leather discolored, like having a white car inevitably needs more frequent cleaning.
 
Looks to be a job well done. As to the colour? A bit bling, but Leica asked for it with the white edition M8.2 et al. It looks better than any of those.
 
Looks professionally done. Very nice. Not sure how they got the white leather, hopefully it wasn't painted.
 
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