Formula 1 Driver's INSANE Watch | First Time Reviewing H.Moser & Cie

This is craftsmanship. This is what we love in Swiss traditional watchmaking. What a dial! It just explodes! Smoky hot, it's beautiful. Good [Music].

Question: this is wonderful. Here with a story of a rather unique brand, it's H. Moser, but everybody just calls him Moser. Here's what I find so interesting about this: Four years ago, I got a phone call from a very, very respected collector that I work with. That's what I love about the watch community. He's in the United Arab Emirates, and he's got a lot of watches. He said, "Kevin, have you heard about Moser?" I said, "No, what's the story?" He said, "Crazy dials! We dial, Guy! These guys make crazy dials! Get on the list. You're going to want one of these things."

I looked at it and said, "That is a crazy dial! Who are these guys?" You know? Since then, Moser has been rocketing up the charts with collectors because they do crazy dials, and their stories are fantastic. I happen to have the CEO, Edward, here. I'm going to call him Ed 'cause we're now friends, and he's going to walk us through this remarkable... I mean, there are so many independent watch companies, and yet Moser has somehow broken through.

So let's talk about that. Give us the story of Moser.

"Wow! How much time do you have?"

Well, I want it short and sweet!

"Yeah, I will try. It's a big story. It's a long story actually. Moser is a pretty old brand. We're actually going to be celebrating the 200 years anniversary in 2028."

"You've been for 200 years?"

"Yeah, it's only the last 10 anybody's ever remembered you."

"Well, that's when I started! No, I mean, back in the 19th century, it was one of the most famous brands. H. Moser and his team produced around 500,000 watches. Very famous, like the collaborations with Fab, one of the first big collaborations in our industry. Real watch royalty history here."

"Yeah, I mean, it's in the DNA of the brand."

"It is definitely. We, as a family, took over in 2012. They were a little bit struggling; we fell in love with the product, the history, the manufacturing. You mentioned the dials, but Moser is also very well known for the movements. Because we are very integrated, we actually even produce hairsprings, you know? The hairspring is what makes our watches rare."

"So you provide springs to other makers?"

"About 35 brands buy it from us, many of the Independents, you know? The MB&Fs, those guys. I mean, if you know, if you're a collector, you understand how the rarity of manufacturing springs is incredible. Many produce movements, and then they come to us, to our engineers, and are like, 'Guys, we need a Tic Tac in there.' It doesn't make much sense in terms of time. So they come to us, and we help them design, and then we produce for them the escapement. The escapement is this element that creates the frequency and the time in the watch."

"You need a secret formula material, you need the machines, and you need the skills."

"And that's what... I'm going to guess 100 years ago, the original Moser at its peak, the 500,000 watches all that were not doing crazy dials."

"Back then, you were thinking reliability, high quality."

"Back then, if you had an issue, you would have to take your horses and bring it back to the workshop in the middle of Switzerland. We're based in Chapé, which is on the far east of Switzerland, bordering Germany. If you read the books and the biographies of H. Moser, it always says his biggest priority was quality because the issue of back-end or logistical issues. So he did a lot of watches that were... reliability was a big deal."

"Yeah, you didn’t want to ride your horse 100 miles."

"No, and a lot of those watches were used by the Army, by the generals, and all those things, so you wanted reliability."

"Let's go into a couple of pieces."

"Sure! Show me what’s new; you know what you like about it. I'm seeing some iterations of the Moser-esque dial, some really interesting colors. The richness! Walk me through this straight right here."

"So here we have some of the more classic. So we start maybe with the... Yeah, the more classic. Moser is known for this understatement, very minimalistic. We said no branding. We say our watches do the talking. 'Is that a Moser?' That's the biggest compliment. That's really what I struggled with when I started, saying I want people to tell it's a Moser from 2 meters away without seeing the logo."

"Anyway, nobody knows our brand, so the product has to talk. We need to have clear codes in the case and obviously in the dial. And yeah, so let's say this watch, for example, which is very important to me, that's a perpetual calendar. The Endeavour collection, with a very special case. It's made of Tentone; it's a very special material. Got that subtle Tentone look, work with that crazy."

"It was always my dream, actually. It doesn’t make any sense to make this watch; we make it because we Moser and we’re having fun. My first watch I received from my father on my 18th birthday was a lume watch. I was always in my life. I said one day, I would love to make it until I realized how difficult it is. So that's a perpetual calendar."

"That's a perpetual calendar with a blue enamel dial. Enamel is very complex to make. We mix four pigments; we spread it with a small pencil on a gold plate hammered, and then we put it 17 times in an oven. Every single time, you can break it, but it has a glow in the center. So you're spreading down enamel differently. We start with a lighter pigment in the middle, and then we try to reproduce this fumé effect. The fumé effect is really this gradient of color that made Moser famous. It's been copied a lot. We traditionally have what we call the 'lacier dials,' which is a little bit easier than this. This has more complications."

"Exactly. This isn't lacier. What’s the price point on this piece?"

"Here, we are around 885,000, whereas here we're around 15,000. It’s really a different complication as well. Here we have a proper... It's probably one of... We call it the 'king' of the complications. It's a watch that knows whether you have 28, 29, 30, or 31 days in the month. You don't need to touch the date, and it's one of the most special because you can move forward or backward at any time of the day. Perpetual calendars, as you know, can be broken easily, and then servicing costs a bomb and takes forever. Here, we have a child-proof watch!"

"It's beautiful and it also has a stunning textured dial."

"Exactly! It’s on the gold plate. That's what I see. I see a lot of transparency, and it’s a very Asian, very traditional technique. But with the colors we play with, it suddenly becomes very modern and sexy."

"Mr. Wonderful, here: no one needs a watch, but everybody wants one. Why? Because it marks a moment of time in your life! Many watches appreciate in value over time. That's why I created Wonder Care. Want to learn more about ensuring your watch? Go to wondercare.com."

"Now, this is close to my heart because it's the sister of yours."

"The sister, exactly! So we have the black hole on your wrist, which is the Vantablack, and here we have the Milky Way. So to say, this dial is very special. It's a glass, it's not a stone; it looks like a stone. It's called aventurine. This aventurine stone, this is glass that was created by accident in... I can't remember which century, but many, many centuries ago by monks. They were doing, you know those glasses in the churches, different colors, and at one point some copper flakes fell into a melted glass blue glass. They came out as this beautiful glass with those sparkles on it. We call it aventurine. There are different types of quality of those; it's very difficult to make. But it's basically a dark blue with copper flakes in there; very interesting, another Moser dial, another M there!”

"I mean, I believe this is like the camper of... I still like M better!"

"Let’s get excited with this one! That's another experiment. We like to go a little bit offbeat sometimes. It's steel; it's kind of an entry-level. We're introducing here a new movement at around $15,000."

"So I was going to ask you, where can someone go that can't afford $80,000?"

"I always want to show them an entry-level that's clearly a Moser—no question! Beautiful, lovely band, blue; that's very interesting. You can have a steel bracelet on that, the white. The right strap, I was surprised! My team said, 'Oh, we should try it on white.' Looks very good! You have super Luminova on the rim, inside on the hand, so it glows in the dark. We like Moser to do the unexpected. We believe we... not... we like the old cure of watchmaking, not the PR. So we try to create the trend."

"I'm very happy, side step that you're providing an entry-level price point, something reasonable, because not everybody... I mean, this is even... I mean the entry point is about 13,000-14,000."

"13—around that. Another very rich, rich interesting green—that's a cosmic green. There's always like this is citrus; this is cosmic green. It's 120 meters water resistant, many different straps, super Luminova. Yeah, really easy to wear and a beautiful movement!"

"The lowest price M. This is... this is around... that's beautiful! Absolutely gorgeous! It's very unique."

"And so we have... I mean, the models are going to be expensive; there's no question about it. But they're expensive, but if you compare even with others... I mean, like this piece. We can probably... Let’s have a look, bring those over. This is the Streamliner skeleton tourbillon double hairspring. This is something that we just released a couple of days ago—big success for the fair.

Yeah, it's quite amazing! In 40 mm, 120 M water resistance, and usually a watch like this in steel... but the movement is so much skeletonized work. I love symmetry! I'm a bit obsessed with symmetry, so we spend a lot of time in making sure like the bridges are very well set. It's a really beautiful skeleton!”

"And here you would go to most of the established brands; you would be in the mid-150 to 100,000 tours. Here, fully in-house skeleton, double hairspring, so like yours, we have two hairsprings compensating each other for the highest precision, and yet we are around 90,000 dollars. So an amazing... I think positioning, a beautiful bracelet that we took years to develop. That’s the Streamliner collection—that’s been a big hit for us, creating something that’s kind of different from the others."

"So 90k?"

"Yeah! Alright, keep going! I see a gold version?"

"Yeah, that's my friend's creation. I said art is important; craftsmanship is important; tradition is important to us. So I had my friend, Julian, the engraver, take one of our gold Streamliners with the beautiful Vantablack dial and just create something unique. She created this beautiful fully hand-engraved piece—this took 200 hours of work. This is one of your Haute Couture pieces."

"This is one of them. I mean, there's many things we could... we have some like something similar, full of gems."

"I feel this is craftsmanship! This is what we love in Swiss traditional watchmaking. A dial, it just explodes! This is a SW sandwich dial. In comparison to yours, we put gold at the back to create those indexes because Vantablack is a structure of a new tube of carbon that would be destroyed if we put the indexes on top. So we put them at the back, which is very complicated; but that’s why in comparison to yours you can see the indexes."

"So gold was not in favor 10 years ago; now it's back."

"Yeah, it's always cyclical!"

"It’s back big time! Yeah, even yellow gold now is coming back—yellow gold is the hottest gold!"

"Yeah, it's always like this: too much steel brings the gold back."

"But this is a really, really great iteration of a Moser! Price point on this?"

"In Swiss francs, we are 100—should be around 180... something like 80,000."

"Okay, so about $200,000 plus dollars, but for this much gold, of course it's good."

"It's a lot of gold! And key here is the 200 hours of work on hand engraving by a very skilled artist. We plan to continue doing this for every edition. So, yeah, we’re trying."

"The idea is over the next few years to create 10 pieces of that."

"Ten? But yeah, I'm talking to her and begging her."

"Is this the only one in existence right now?"

"Right now, yeah. She finished it like a couple of days ago for the fair. Actually came here to see it finished, assembled by the watchmakers. I mean, that's smoking hot! It's beautiful—no question! This is art."

"Alright, let’s keep going. The story about Moser—a recent story is: we just... I mean, Moser historically had never had any sponsorship or partnerships or any kind. But recently we got approached by a Formula 1 team—French Formula 1 team, Alpine. The CEO of the Renault group, the French Renault group, is a big Moser fan, and they’re trying to bring Alpine further up the luxury... well aware! I know where they are in the pecking order!"

"Oh, yeah! They’re pretty much at the bottom. We knew that—we're expecting that. But anyway, they wanted to work with us. My father, our father, is a big fan of Alpine. It’s especially popular in France. But anyway, they came to us, and we said, 'Interesting! What can we do together?' And then we started working on crazy ideas, exchanging engineers."

"A fun story: I love the Journe. And they’re starting at the bottom of the pack right now in Formula One. We started at the bottom. We love that! We think if you experience that, you enjoy the climb back to the top. So that's the hope! We cheer for them; we’re bringing a lot of partners there, and we are launching next week, actually, considering the day we are speaking—a special edition together with Alpine."

"So that’s the whole excitement around the Miami F1?”

"Yes! I mean, that’s such a huge race now around the world—exactly! So many brand partnerships!"

"So we’re creating here F1 Moser? Is that what you’re going to call it?"

"We're calling it the Alpine Moser. It's a cylindrical tourbillon. Why do we do cylindrical? Because we make our own hairsprings. So we developed a hairspring that is not flat like the others. It's actually cylindrical, which is something that was created in the 18th century for chronometers in maritime navigation, where you needed concentricity in the hairspring, which is the element that ensures the highest level of precision and that’s impossible to make in recent years. Until we brought it back, a lot of brands are coming back to try to have those hairsprings from us. And here we included it in the tourbillon, cylindrical skeleton, and the Streamliner—fully 2.3 meters on a beautiful blue strap."

"Obviously, the pilots—the past and present pilots—they wanted something bold; they want something like, you know, like... oh, we see so many other guys with... some of the most expensive watches on Earth are skeleton tourbillons!"

"What's this?"

"We are slightly below 100,000."

"That’s not bad! What this is, is pretty good!"

"It is really, really good. A lot of people come in and would expect more! Y! And I know of the 200, so this should get a good buzz because it’s beautiful! I mean, you somehow kept the Moser aspect to it, and it's got a little Moser in it—important!"

"Yeah, you know Alpine has two liveries, right? There’s the blue and sometimes the pink."

"Yes! There’s going to be a surprise pink band also! We’re going to do a pink version of it; there are going to be 100 of those. So the pink would show—there’s no red one, but it’s going to be pink here and pink there. Ten! Ten of them, actually, and one will be auctioned for the BWT collaboration."

"Fantastic! I love this! This is a pretty broad collection. We have one more sitting up there."

"That’s the Masterpiece! Alright, let’s look at the Masterpiece.”

"So the Masterpiece for us is what we call the Miniature Perpetual. This is your most high-end complication?"

"Yeah, so we make at the moment one to two pieces a month of the Miniature Perpetual. Miniature Perpetual is basically a watch that gives you the time not only by the hands but also by the sound. It was created for, you know, back then when you didn’t have the electricity, right? So people would have to ring their watch to listen to the time at night."

"So maybe we can hear it?"

"I'm not sure it’s going to be very audible. We have here something that we use to test them before we send them to the market—it’s an amplifier with a very nice wood from our forest that helps amplify the sound of it."

"I'm going to take it a little bit next close to me—maybe the microphone can...?"

"So this gives you a code: the first hammer gives you the hours; the second hammer—the combination of the two gives you the quarters; and then the last one gives you the minutes. And that’s how we give the time with this watch!"

"Beautiful! It’s beautiful! So we here have a titanium version. Titanium is very hard and that’s the one that gives the best, the clearest sound. Gold is a little bit more mellifluous, but absorbs a little bit of the energy. You know, it’s also got the textured hammer dial—this is an enamel dial as well!"

"I think it’s beautiful—absolutely stunning! I think it makes for a really interesting cross-section of what you’ve got and what you’re bringing."

"Yeah! And a new exciting direction for the company in some ways; affiliation with F1 is a big deal!"

"It's a big deal! I think it's interesting how it will push us into innovating also with new materials, exploring third dimensions, bolder designs. But we want to continue to respect the tradition—the high-end finishing. I’m impressed, this is a beautiful piece!"

"And I’m going to continue my journey down the rabbit hole named Moser. You know, I think it’s wonderful you guys have kept true to what you started a decade ago. It’s very good work."

"Thank you! Thank you very much! My pleasure."