BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
H. Moser & Cie. is no stranger to complicated mechanical watches; in fact, you could say that they make it more complicated for themselves than most, thanks to their sister company Precision Engineering AG, which makes the tiny components like hairsprings and such. Believe it or not, it’s quite rare for a watchmaker to produce things like hairsprings in-house, as it’s a very complex process and there are specialist firms capable of making them in bulk. But H. Moser & Cie. does things differently, and that’s partially why it’s got such a strong reputation in the industry. So when they sent me the press kit for their latest piece, the Endeavour Minute Repeater Cylindrical Tourbillon Skeleton Cosmic Rain Ref. 1909-0501, I wasn’t surprised.
A minute repeater watch with a tourbillon is a special thing we don’t see every day. H. Moser & Cie.’s new Endeavour shows off their creative and technical abilities well, basing its layout on its other tourbillon minute repeater pieces while being a bit different from them. The flying tourbillon remains at 6 o’clock with a cylindrical hairspring; the unusual shape of the spring is claimed to reduce beat errors and make the watch more accurate in the long term, although H. Moser & Cie. does not state that it is a certified chronometer. The minute repeater hammers and gongs are also shown on the dial side, positioned at 11 O’clock to better show the mechanism. The time is displayed on a small dial at 2 O’clock, rather than overlapping all of it. The time dial is made of aventurine glass that has a unique extra layer of complexity to it in the form of applied stripes of mother-of-pearl – these are the vertical strips on the curved aventurine glass dial that create the cosmic rain atop the starry sky backdrop.
Nearly all of the dial is skeletonised, except for the time subdial, of course. That means the hand-wound calibre HMC 909 is on full display from the front and the back. Creating this visual appeal also creates a few headaches for the watchmakers, as there are no traditional plates in place to hold things together, and because nearly all of the 415 components and 35 jewels are on display at all times, there is very little room for error when it comes to decoration. As for performance, the watch’s frequency is 3Hz, and it has a power reserve of 90 hours, although I bet that doesn’t account for the use of the minute repeater, which is something I’d fiddle with very often if I owned it.
H. Moser & Cie.’s latest Endeavour piece is presented in a titanium case measuring 40mm x 14.4mm with sapphire crystal on the front and the back, and it comes on a hand-stitched grey nubuck alligator leather strap with a titanium pin buckle. Limited to 20 pieces (just like another watch we looked at recently), the new Endeavour costs CHF378,350 including tax.
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