Photographic equipment, including spy cameras, from the 1830s to the 1980s goes up for auction next week, with estimates ranging from £200 to £15,000 sterling (€316 to €23,700).
The auction at Christie's in London next Tuesday includes the 1946 prototype "Phantom" camera. Designed by Noel Pemberton Billing, a member of the British parliament from 1916 to 1921, the camera has a built-in processing unit. It is expected to fetch between £8,000 and £12,000. Billing also held patents for gramophones, aircraft and motor vehicles.
The eccentric MP was once suspended from the House of Commons and it took five men, including the Sergeant-at-arms, to remove him from the building. "He was involved in the `libel case of the century' in 1917, brought by Maud Allen, an actress appearing in Oscar Wilde's play Salome, because of an article which appeared in The Vigilante, which he published," says Christie's.
The eccentric politician acted in his own defence and used the case to publicise a German "Black Book", which named 47,000 British citizens it claimed were susceptible to German pressure - including the judge hearing the libel case. Billing was subsequently found innocent of the libel.
Billing's prototype led to French manufacturers LeCoultre developing the Compass II in 1938. A 35 millimetre chrome-bodied example of the latter in the auction looks exactly like a compass and is estimated at £800 to £1,000. Spy cameras from Japan, Russia, Britain and France feature in the auction. Ranging in estimate from £300 to £12,000, disguises include coat buttons, cigarette lighters and pocket watches.
A Japanese Doryu 2-16 gun camera from the 1950s, similar to the type used by the Japanese police for shooting practice, is expected to fetch £4,000 to £6,000.
Another Japanese-made spy camera by the Suzuki Optical Company, which looks like a cigarette lighter, is expected to be snapped up for £300 to £500. The chrome eight millimetre camera looks like an authentic Zippo lighter and when fitted with a proper wick can be used as a lighter, says Christie's.
A Ticka Focal-plane camera with a focusing Cooke lens disguised as a pocket watch, produced by British company Houghtons Ltd between 1908 and 1914, is expected to make £3,000 to £4,000. The camera has cogs and operating devices attached to the outside of the chrome body and it is the rarest production Ticka camera, says Christie's.
Meanwhile, a Russian F21 coat-button camera, similar to the type the Stasi used during the Cold War, is expected to make £800 to £1,200. Mr Eddie Chandler of Glukman and Company in Dublin says photographic images as well as photographic equipment can sell for "a huge amount of money", especially in the US. However, top of the market photographic equipment doesn't tend to show up very often in Ireland. "And finding someone to buy it in Ireland is another thing. To be honest with you, if I find something valuable I'm straight across to London."
He cautions collectors to be realistic about prices they hope to get when selling photographic equipment. If an item is valued at £400, that is the price a collector might pay for it. But if selling through a dealer, that £400 is the price the dealer expects to sell it for, in which case the vendor will get significantly less. If there is insufficient profit in the transaction for the dealer, there is no point in the dealer spending time and resources selling it.
So when asking for a valuation, be prepared to accept perhaps half of what the eventual buyer will pay for it.
Glukman and Co. can be contacted by phoning 01-6624464. Christie's website: www.christies.com
jmarms@irish-times.ie
