Heinrich Moser was born in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, in 1803, into a family with a long-standing watchmaking tradition, surrounded by a workshop full of wood shavings and machine oil. After spending his childhood near the Rhine River falls, he established his company in 1828 in St. Petersburg, within Tsarist Russia. The Communist Revolution eventually forced him to relocate his operations back to Switzerland, but the Quartz Crisis shook the company, which only began to recover in 2012 under new ownership. Recently, in a defiant move, the brand announced that, due to changes in regulations requiring at least 60% of a watch’s components to be Swiss-made, it would cease using the words “Swiss Made.” Instead, it would produce a watch that is 95% Swiss, without explicitly stating it.
The model in the photo (still featuring “Swiss Made…”) includes a tourbillon, a second time zone indicator, and a dial crafted using the classic Fumé enamel technique, which involves firing at extremely high temperatures.
A stunning piece, priced at $98,000.
