NOMOS Glashütte Metro Datum Gangreserve (Metro date power reserve) 1101

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The storyWhy this reference matters

The Metro landed in 2014 and looked like nothing else in the catalogue. It is signed by Mark Braun, the Berlin designer who would end up running the brand's design team, and it brought two new things: wire lugs — the first on a Nomos — and a palette of mint green and red details on a silver-plated dial. The case is a polished cylinder with the lugs coming out of its sides; Worn & Wound noted that the sapphire domes and then flattens again in a curve they hadn't seen on another watch.

The real news was inside. The DUW 4401 was the first calibre with the swing system: balance, hairspring, escape wheel and pallet fork, all made by Nomos. The company developed it with the Technical University of Dresden and calls it, without hedging, its declaration of independence from the big groups. Until then, any manufacturer that didn't make its own escapement depended on a handful of Swiss suppliers.

The calibre has a history of its own. It descends from the old Delta and carries two house patents: the date, and that power reserve display which isn't a hand but an aperture with a rotating surface behind it. The more white you can see, the more wind is left; turn the crown and the whole disc revolves. Add a numbered three-quarter plate, blued hairspring, 23 jewels and fine adjustment in six positions.

SpecificationsThe numbers, in one table

IdentificationHow to tell it apart

There is a mix-up worth clearing up before anything else: reference 1101 is not the "Metro 38 Datum". The 1101 is the 37 mm Metro with date and power reserve, calibre DUW 4401. The Metro 38 Datum is a different watch — 38.5 mm, calibre DUW 4101, no power reserve window — and its references start at 1102. Fratello put it plainly when they reviewed it: the 38 grows by a millimetre and a half and loses precisely the window that makes the small one special.

At a glance, the 1101 gives itself away by the round power reserve aperture up at the top right, between twelve and one, with a mint green disc and a red-and-white sector inside it. Below, on the six o'clock axis, sits the small seconds with its red hand, and lower still the date window. The markers at twelve, three and nine are mint green; the rest are black.

The rest is measurements: 37.0 mm across, only 43.6 mm lug to lug thanks to the wire lugs, 7.7 mm thick, 18 mm between the lugs. The Horween Shell Cordovan strap comes with quick-release bars, which makes sense on a watch with wire lugs, where changing a strap by hand is a form of torture.

CollectingWhat collectors check

The wire lugs are the area to go over with a loupe. They are soldered to the cylinder of the case and a knock puts them out of true; with the watch flat on a table, check that both sit at the same height and that the strap doesn't run crooked. Check as well that the quick-release bars are still there — replacing them is easy, but you want to know before you pay.

The sapphire with its peculiar curve throws a fine shadow across the dial, and that isn't a fault: Worn & Wound described it in their review and reported that the eye adjusts within a few days. What is a fault is a stained silver dial or faded mint green, because these are very pale printed colours that show damp almost immediately.

On servicing, keep in mind that the DUW 4401 runs the Nomos escapement: not something any workshop can sort out from a drawer of generic parts, and a service goes through the brand or through a watchmaker with access to spares. In exchange, it is the calibre that launched the swing system, which gives the 1101 a place in the company's history no other reference in the catalogue can claim.

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