H. Moser & Cie. extends its robust, “everyday wear” Pioneer collection with two new models equipped with in-house movements and distinguished by midnight blue fumé dials and cases combining 5N rose gold with black DLC-finished titanium. From simple to complex, here are the details on the Pioneer Centre Seconds and Pioneer Tourbillon.
The Pioneer Centre Seconds, with Moser’s self-winding HMC 200 movement beating inside its 42.8-mm case, features a straightforward, though inarguably elegant, three-handed time display, with two partially skeletonized, leaf-shaped gold hands indicating the hour and minute on applied gold hour indices; both the hands and hour markers are treated with Super-LumiNova. The case has a curved sapphire crystal over the sunburst dial and a screw-in crown helping to ensure its sports-watch-worthy water resistance of 120 meters. Caliber HMC 200, visible through another sapphire window in the back, bears the stylistic hallmarks of Moser movements, including the emblematic double stripes on the bridges and mainplate. A large, engraved bidirectional rotor transfers energy to the barrel through a pawl winding system, reducing the amount of time required to wind the movement up to its full three days’ worth of power reserve. The Pioneer Centre Seconds comes on a sporty, perforated black rubber strap with a rose gold pin buckle, and retails for $19,900.
The Pioneer Tourbillon — which, unlike the Centre Seconds, is a limited edition of 50 pieces — boasts the same 42.8-mm case made of rose gold with black DLC titanium inserts and the same dark gradient blue dial with golden hands and indices. At 6 o’clock on this model however, is a large aperture for the tourbillon, the central feature of the watch’s movement, the self-winding Caliber HMC 804. The movement, visible through a sapphire caseback, is equipped with an in-house-produced double flat hairspring, a Moser innovation that is designed to improve accuracy by correcting the movement of the point of gravity on each of the paired springs as they expand. Timekeeping accuracy and isochronism is improved in this double-hairspring system because it reduces the effects of friction associated with a more traditional, single-hairspring design. Finally, the tourbillon is designed as an interchangeable “plug and play” module, assembled and regulated independently of the movement, for easy servicing. The bi-directional rotor, skeletonized and made of 18k rose gold, transfers energy to the barrel using a bi-directional pawl winding system that reduces the time required to wind the mainspring.
The movement, visible through a sapphire caseback, is equipped with an in-house-produced double flat hairspring, a Moser innovation that is designed to improve accuracy by correcting the movement of the point of gravity on each of the paired springs as they expand. Timekeeping accuracy and isochronism is improved in this double-hairspring system because it reduces the effects of friction associated with a more traditional, single-hairspring design. Finally, the tourbillon is designed as an interchangeable “plug and play” module, assembled and regulated independently of the movement, for easy servicing. The bi-directional rotor, skeletonized and made of 18k rose gold, transfers energy to the barrel using a bi-directional pawl winding system that reduces the time required to wind the mainspring while still amassing a power reserve of three days, or 72 hours. The Pioneer Tourbillon is mounted on a rubber strap and priced at $59,900.
