High-end independent Swiss watchmaker H. Moser & Cie is known, on one hand, for making extremely elegant and refined watches while, on the other hand, occasionally employing some rather cheeky marketing. It’s the elegant watches that are most interesting, and the brand has made a name for itself particularly with clever, minimalistic interpretations of the perpetual calendar complication. The newest such creation is called the Pioneer Perpetual Calendar MD and it once again offers complex inner workings that display a good deal of information, but in a remarkably clean and balanced way.
To refresh your memory, the perpetual calendar complication means that the mechanism will display accurate calendar information not only regardless of the various lengths of months in the Gregorian calendar, but it even accounts for leap years. This might sound simple, as it’s inexpensively accomplished by Casio watches and various digital devices, but it’s an involved feat of micro-engineering for a mechanical watch. At the watch’s case back one can observe the beautifully finished, manually wound HMC 808 movement that powers it all, as well as the leap year indicator — no real need for that to be on the dial anyway.
The main change to previous such perpetual calendar watches from the brand is the manner of displaying the current month. Instead of a small centrally mounted pointer above the dial, the Pioneer Perpetual Calendar MD uses the same basic mechanism to drive a wheel below the dial and display the month in an aperture. The look is reminiscent of the way the day of the week is displayed alongside the date window at 9 o’clock on many other watches (the name’s MD stands for Month and Day). Also on the dial you will find a power reserve indicator at 9 o’clock and a subdial for the seconds at 6.
Of course, one can’t overlook the attractive sunburst finish of the dial that is simultaneously given a fumé, or smoked, treatment. It is offered in two colors, a “Funky Blue” and a “Burgundy” that is also being referred to as “raspberry.” These are elegant designs, but the Pioneer series of watches has a relatively sporty character as well with 120m of water resistance and design elements like luminant on the dial and hands, and a slightly more aggressive case design with indented sides that give it a somewhat architected look.
In steel, the H. Moser & Cie Pioneer Perpetual Calendar MD measures 42.8mm wide and 11.3mm thick, and both versions have a price of $39,900.
Gear Patrol also recommends:
IWC Da Vinci Perpetual Calendar Chronograph ($29,900)
JLC Duomètre Quantième Lunaire ($41,000)
Glashütte Original PanoLunar Tourbillon ($78,312)
