TIME FOR QUALITY: A pocket watch
used on the four-year course in watchmaking at Le Locle Technical
Training College. Students spend up to year hand-tooling and assembling
the 92 minuscule components that make up a Zenith Marine Chronometer
— a complex piece of micro-engineering that is as technically
obsolete as the manual typewriter. Yet nowadays, that kind of obsolescence
fetches premium prices from well-heeled buyers keen to purchase complicated
quality mechanical watches.
