This Praktica prototype could be a rare and interesting find for anyone who has a weakness for cool and unique vintage cameras.
If you’re looking for a rare vintage camera with a interesting history, today’s awesome ebay find is definitely worthy of a place in your camera collection. The Praktica BX20s itself is a historically interesting model in itself, but this red prototype is certainly a unique representative of Praktica’s BX series. If you have $1,749 to spare, you might want to grab this rare piece!
According to Germany-based seller vintagelens, this red Praktica BX20s prototype body is in near mint condition (apart from the tiny chips on its typeface), and its shutter and technical functions were tested with no issues found. The unit comes with the genuine Praktica camera strap and two covers for a typeface test. The seller also noted that this is the only prototype BX20s produced by Schneider GmbH.
Some of you may be curious just as we are about this rare piece, so we looked around for more information about it. According to pentax-slr.com, the BX series was produced by Pentacon in Dresden, East Germany from 1987 to 2001. The models from this series were the last Prakticas to be sold, with the BX20s being the very last ever made. This series introduced a TTL flash mode, improved shutter, DX coding reading, and an ergonomic design for the BX20s. There were only 37 units of BX20s developed by the Dresden factory before it closed down in 1990.
Now, it gets more interesting from here. From 1991 to 2001, Schneider GmbH in West Germany took over the production of the BX20s, exactly the same as the Dresden model. There were around 33,319 units made, but there’s only one of this red prototype made — maybe Schneider was thinking if they could make limited edition units for this model!
More technical information about the Praktica BX20s here.
Ready to grab this rare prototype? Prepare your $1,749 and head to the ebay listing now to buy it now.
Images from the ebay listing by vintagelens