As a watchmaker, I often start my assessment of a watch with it face down. Although my habits as a collector, perhaps surprisingly, are more aesthetically grounded than they are technical, and any appraisal of where a watch sits within the context of modern watchmaking must begin with its beating heart.
What I saw through the sapphire display case back of the Leica Monochrom ZM 1 and ZM 2 shocked me. This was not, as I had erroneously (and unfairly) expected, an off-the-shelf tractor caliber, dressed up with fancy finishing. Furthermore, its functionality was not module-based. It was integrated. That immediately signaled that Leica, to the brand’s immense credit, had not chosen the path of least resistance. The brand had chosen the
