The Austrian auction house WestLicht  AuctionPhotographer has been proposed on 29 May 2010, one of the first commercially produced cameras. This is a Giroux Daguerreotype, which was manufactured in Paris in 1839.

Very few units were built in units, and were from the original designs of Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre and Giroux Alphone (hence the brand name).

The auction will take place in Vienna and it is estimated that the sale is at least half a million Euros.
The camera was illegal and was completely unknown. Its owners have been private individuals in northern Germany for over 100 years. The camera is incredibly well preserved to be 170 years old. The owners were able to retain the instruction manual, written in German.

The manual is entitled Praktische Beschreibung des Daguerreotype’s and was published in Berlin in 1839 by Georg Gropius. It consists of 24 pages, 18 illustrations and 5 plates showing all the steps needed to build Dagerrotypes as specified by the invention of Dagerre. In the back of the book there are two handwritten notes from 1840 with details of the process.

All parts of the camera original, including the target, the screen of frosted glass, signed by Daguerre plate or black velvet inside.