Pre-Baselworld 2014: Perpetual Calendar ‘Black Edition’ From H. Moser & Cie.

Until now we haven’t covered H. Moser & Cie and that’s strange, because I have been quite impressed by their collection. Especially the Mayu, with its clean dial and large seconds sub dial, looks very beautiful. And moreover, all models are equipped with an in-house movement. Another one that I do like a lot, is Moser’s Perpetual Calendar and the new Perpetual Calendar ‘Black Edition’ looks very classy (for a black watch).

I do think that black watches and ‘fancy’ watches (like a dress watch or a perpetual calendar watch) are better in steel or any colour of gold. Black is good for dive watches or other sporty watches and off the top of my head I can only think of one black dress watch that really looks very good, which was the unique Piaget Altiplano for Only Watch 2011. At the time we wondered if Piaget was going to set a trend, with that ultra-thin skeletonized black dress watch, and we haven’t seen many similar (black, classy dress watch), until now. The new ‘Black Edition’ Perpetual Calendar looks the works and we just love the combination of the black with rose gold indices. As they call it themselves: Bold elegance in Haute Horlogerie.

The case is in black DLC coated titanium, and measures 40.8 mm in diameter and 11.1 mm in height. Not the usual black monstrous watch, but a black watch that has rather moderate dimensions. Besides the pleasant proportions, it is one of the most legible and clean perpetual calendars on the market. And it comes with a manually wound in-house movement, with a 7-day power reserve, provided by two main spring barrels. The interchangeable Moser escapement beats at a steady pace of 18,000 vph, and powers the instantaneous-changing calendar.

But there’s more, like for instance the leap year indication on the back side of the movement, and the fact that the movement is adjusted to six, instead of the “usual” five positions. And there’s the crown, which is the so-called Double Pull Crown, that allows the owner to pull the crown once to adjust the date, without disturbing the time-keeping. When the crown is pulled to the second click/position, the hacking system stops the balance and the hour and minute hand can be synchronised. When the crown is pushed in, the balance wheel is released, and the seconds hand starts ticking again.

If you’re wondering how to read the various calendar indications and how all this makes a perpetual calendar, that is actually quite simple. However you have to accept that this perpetual calendar does not have the usual aperture for indicating the months or the day of the week. It simply indicates the correct date, c’est tout. A short hand with an arrow, coming from the centre, indicates the months. When it points to 12, that means it is December, January is at 1 o’clock and so on.

The Flash Date Calendar gathers the energy to switch the date accurately and instantaneously, in a fraction of a second. This super legible and clean perpetual calendar may be adjusted both forward and back at any time of day, without risking damage to the movement or a visit to your watchmaker.

With the Perpetual Calendar ‘Black Edition’, Moser & Cie for the first time have created a watch in titanium, instead of the usual gold and platinum that they use for their watches. The dial’s black surface features rose gold applied indices that match the rose gold hands.

The Perpetual Calendar Black Edition will be available from May 2014, in a limited edition of 100 pieces, and comes at a retail price of CHF 50,000.

Some specifications:

• Case: three-part titanium case, black DLC-coated, 40.8 mm in diameter, 11.1 mm in height, curved sapphire crystal, curved sapphire crystal case-back, screw-in crown
• Movement: in-house hand-wound calibre HMC 341, power reserve of 7 days (168 hours), double main spring barrel, 18,000 vph, 28 jewels, hacking seconds, interchangeable Moser escapement, original Straumann® hairspring with stabilised Breguet overcoil, pallet fork and escapement wheel made from gold, movement and components hand-finished and decorated
• Functions: perpetual “Flash” calendar, big date display, centre-hand month indicator, hour and minute, off-centre seconds dial, power reserve indicator on dial, leap-year cycle indicator on movement side
• Strap: hand-stitched, carbon-coated black alligator, solid titanium DLC-treated pin buckle, with engraved Moser logo

More info: www.h-moser.com