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Jony Ive's (RED) Leica M, Mac Pro Fetch Millions at Auction

 & Stephanie Mlot Contributor

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A one-of-a-kind Leica M camera co-designed by Apple's Jony Ive sold for $1.805 million during Saturday's Sotheby's auction to benefit Bono's (RED) Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.

Several other geeky products also pulled in the big bucks, including a red Mac Pro, which sold for $977,000, a pair of solid rose gold Apple EarPods for $461,000, and a Stormtrooper helmet signed by George Lucas for $245,000.

Ive, Apple's design chief, worked with industrial designer Marc Newson on the 44-piece auction, which also included furniture, cars, and clothing.

For the (RED) Leica M, the designers took the classic look of the famed Leica series, and turned it into a sleek, modern, Apple-worthy product. "The Leica object embodies the most iconographic qualities of a camera," Newson said in a video (below). "It ended up being kind of a process of distillation and sort of concentration."

Carved out of a single block of aluminum, the Leica M for (RED) features more than 21,900 laser-engraved holes, which work double duty as added aesthetic appeal and a grip for the handler. Clearly a departure from the classic leather-bound Leica, this camera includes more than 100 tweaks from the original 2012 Leica M.

"There have been a lot of challenges to change the design," Stefan Daniel, Leica's director of product management, told PCMag in a Friday interview. Standing beside the encased device (below), Daniel called the workable camera "really something special."

In the works since December, the modernized Leica M took more than 50 engineers more than 270 days to build; the outer shell's holes alone took 97 hours to precisely engrave.

Leica M for (RED) at Sotheby

"We wanted it to be light. We didn't want to make it from brass; we wanted to make it from aluminum," Ive said in the video. "We used the most advanced tools that we possibly could to make it. We've made prototype after prototype, and spent so much energy making this, as if we were going to make millions of them. But we're only going to make one."

The (RED) Leica M was estimated to pull in between $500,000 and $750,000, but surpassed expectations with more than $1.8 million. Estimates on the (RED) Mac Pro, meanwhile, were put at $40,000 to $60,000, but neared $1 million with $977,000.

On Twitter, Sotheby's said that a "battle for pair of solid rose gold EarPods ... brought $461k to rounds of applause." The listing originally estimated that they would fetch between $20,000 and $25,000.

For more, see the slideshow above and PCMag's reviews of the Leica M and Apple EarPods, as well as our hands on with the (black) Mac Pro.

Chloe Albanesius contributed to this story.

About Our Expert

Stephanie Mlot

Stephanie Mlot

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My Experience

  • B.A. in Journalism & Public Relations with minor in Communications Media from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP)
  • Reporter at The Frederick News-Post (2008-2012)
  • Reporter for PCMag and Geek.com (RIP) (2012-present)

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