Looking to combine something as practical as a two time zone watch with something as delicate and prestigious as a tourbillon? Well, Swiss H. Moser & Cie has the watch for you, with the lovely looking new H. Moser & Cie Venturer Tourbillon Dual Time. The watch also happens to feature the first tourbillon-based movement offered by H. Moser & Cie, and it contains dual hairsprings along with some other interesting features that I will discuss below. In short, H. Moser & Cie presents a tourbillon watch potentially capable of overcoming the accuracy issues inherent in many tourbillon watches. For those who understand tourbillons, this is a clear irony.
From a design perspective, the H. Moser & Cie Venturer Tourbillon Dual Time very much fits into the larger H. Moser & Cie collection when it comes to aesthetics and simplicity. Looking deeper, you see 1960s watch design as well as Bauhaus influence. In many ways, the design DNA of H. Moser & Cie is one very successful way of marrying modern and traditional aesthetic considerations together.
The H. Moser & Cie Venturer Tourbillon Dual Time is meant to be a comfortable, capable watch that is both high-end and collectible, but also suitable for daily wear. What I most appreciate about watches of this ilk is that they really take into consideration practical things such as legibility, convenience, and utility when designing a $100,000 plus object. At 41.5mm wide and 14.3mm thick, the H. Moser & Cie Venturer Tourbillon Dual Time isn’t small, but should wear comfortably and boldly. The dial design mixes simplicity with a dual-layer lower dial with a decorated plate and opening for the flying tourbillon.
H. Moser & Cie domes the dial a bit and offers three different versions of the H. Moser & Cie Venturer Tourbillon Dual Time dial each with a sunburst polishing job and a gradient. They called it a “fumé” style, which means smoked, and I can see that. The colors include ardoise, silver, or red-gold. These should look pretty neat in person and eschew some of the boredom of flat colored dials that can occur in similar dress-style watches.
I bow in praise of the fact that H. Moser & Cie’s first tourbillon movement is both an automatic and meant to be as accurate as possible. We are talking about the new in-house made caliber HMC 802, and it operates at 21,600 bph and has a power reserve of 3 days. As a travel watch, being an automatic makes sense, and the “dual time” complication consists of a second hour hand in red that quite simply can be used as a second 12 hour time zone indicator. The wearer can also “hide” the second time zone hand under the main hour hand to give the dial a cleaner look if they are not traveling.
The HMC 802 movement features the first modular tourbillon system for the brand. Simply speaking, it is an interchangeable tourbillon section that can be independently assembled, regulated, and repaired, and then just dropped into the movement. Lots of modern watches feature interchangeable parts, but many high-end movements are still highly unique in their assembly meaning that each must be specially tweaked. Using an interchangeable system for the tourbillon offers benefits for both H. Moser & Cie as well as the customers.
