Our story on Friday recounting my meeting with Kai Elmer Sotto and his wabi-sabi brassy Leica M-P has proved to be a haunting experience for many. Readers and netizens alike are lusting after a similar camera of their own.
It has certainly been preying on my mind and I now find myself acting strangely. This morning, for instance, I was to be seen in Berkeley Square (having returned the road test SL and zoom to Leica and feeling newly fleet of foot and fancy-free) walking along while gently rubbing the top left corner of my hitherto-pampered M-P against the palm of my left hand. Every few paces I took a surreptitious glance to detect evidence of brassing, but all to no avail.
I need to get much more aggressive and I shall be throwing the poor thing around over the next couple of weeks in constant hope of results. Any brassing successes will be reported.
Angle grinder
Ivor Cooper of Red Dot offered to take the M-P home and introduce it to some fiendish DIY tool he has lurking at the back of his garage. That, I feel, is cheating and much to be deplored. Thanks, Ivor, for the thought.
Fortunately I am not the only one smitten. The Sotto Saga has proved incredibly popular and the readership statistics on this one article have been soaring. It seems #brassing is trending this week in obsessive Leica circles.
My friend Jim Arnold from Ohio reports equally strange happenings in his household:
That article got into my head. Last night I had a dream where I was carelessly letting my M6 swing about and it rammed it into something. The top plate was warped. I felt the sadness that would occur if this really happened.
We’ve all been there, Jim. I remember vividly the night the 50mm Apo-Summicron rolled off the desk, landing on a tiled floor with the front element shattering into a thousand pieces. Fortunately I knew I had Leica passport. Unfortunately, though, I woke up to find Leica UK killed the passport on April 1 in a cruel jest.
Lot to answer for
But Kai Elmer Sotto clearly has a lot to answer for. In my crystal ball I see legions of Leica owners furiously rubbing their top plates in order to introduce some wabi-sabi into their lives. Where do we go from here, I wonder.
Read Friday’s article on meeting Kai Elmer Sotto
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My pride and joy is my prototype black paint M9 with my name on it (it says M8 on the front)- I now have a chrome M-P, and although I use it more, it’s not the same.
The M9 is nicely brassed – not scratched you understand (save one reminder of a raki fuelled walk down a Cretan scree after lunch). I love it. When it’s sensor was replaced recently I made sure that everything else stayed!
But I’m afraid there isn’t a short cut to this – only gentle use produces perfect brassing; speeding the process up is like buying pre-faded jeans, it’s just not the same thing!.
Nice article though – thank you.
Thank you, Jono, I am afraid you are right about not being able to rush this thing (but see Andrew’s comment below where his nicely worn Monochrom was replaced by Leica with a new one. How dare they!).
I am a great fan of Crete and, of course, of raki. In fact, I keep a bottle in the fridge. Apart from drinking it, I also use it to remove sticky labels from equipment and as a general cleaning agent. I am now wondering if it will speed the brassing process. It will either kill or cure, as it does for us humans.
There is a Cretan saying:
1 raki is worth a soveriegn
2 raki’s are worth two sovereigns
3 raki’s are worth no sovereigns!
I fear I had three when I slipped on the scree!
Black chrome wears differently – it goes kind of gunmetal, I like it, but it doesn’t have the same charm!
Just when my M Monochrom finally started to show some wear (silvering?) to its black chrome finish, the sensor corroded, Leica took way too long to get a replacement (sensor) and replaced the whole damned camera. Sadly, the new Monochrom (CCD) is just that, NEW, and I have to start all over again. Three years of hard work down the drain.
Oooerr, that’s tough luck!
I suppose one could take a black paint Leica and travel to the north of England with it… To Yorkshire or Lancashire perhaps…
Because they say up there that "where there’s muck there’s brass…"
Probably keep it in mines 😉
oh gawd….
Dear Minnie,
You’re right. But I claim copyright on muck and brass. Mentioned it in the original article.
Oh Lordy, so you did…
My apols Mike…
But some say the old ones are the best.
Get a brassy black LTM dated between 1925 and 1936 with nickel ‘furniture’ and lens, they are much nicer and cheaper.
William
Good point…
Got one, thanks, William!
Thanks for that, Mike. Before all this I wanted a brassy M, now I need one…