Keeping it in the family...kind of 

Heinrich’s son Henri, however, inherited his father’s wanderlust but not his love of watches and industry. Around the time Heinrich was busy damming the Rhine, Henri rejected his father’s pleas to enter the family business and fled Schaffhausen to tour the Middle and Far East extensively.

He amassed a large collection of Asian and Islamic art, weapons, armour and hunting trophies, which were displayed at a number of European museums and eventually donated to the Bern Historical Museum (along with a sum of 100,000 francs to ensure the collection’s preservation).

Heinrich’s disapproval of his son’s chosen occupation as adventurer, merchant and patron of the arts meant the two had been estranged for several years by the time he died in 1874. In the absence of an heir willing to take the reins, his wife, Fanny, sold the trading company and workshops in 1877—on condition that they operate in perpetuity under the Moser name, per her husband’s dying wish.

While the Moser operations in Le Locle continued apace, the Russian business was expropriated when the Bolsheviks toppled the tsar in the October Revolution of 1917. Octave Meylan, a co-owner and director of the Russian business, returned to his native Switzerland, hamstrung by the Marxists’ seizure of the means of production and the source of his livelihood.

In 2012, however, his family reclaimed its birthright when a grandson of Octave, Georges-Henri Meylan, acquired H Moser & Cie under the family-owned group MELB Holding.

See also: About Time: The Latest Watch Industry News For August

A roaring resurrection 

In 2005, a dormant H Moser & Cie had been relaunched by a group of entrepreneurs that included Roger Nicholas Balsiger, the great-grandson of the original founder, Heinrich Moser. The recessive gene governing a fascination with horology had finally come to the fore, and Roger oversaw the construction of new production facilities in the family’s ancestral home of Schaffhausen.

Following his 2012 takeover of Moser, Georges-Henri Meylan, a former CEO of Audemars Piguet, appointed his son Edouard as boss of the revitalised company.

A new era

Edouard Meylan brought a youthful dynamism and irreverence to Moser, and over the past six years has presided over the launch of numerous critically acclaimed, commercially successful timepieces balancing traditional horological savoir faire and classical lines with a contemporary aesthetic and refreshing sense of humour.

The rounded-rectangular Swiss Alp watch, for instance, was created as a witty mechanical riposte to Apple’s smartwatch, while the barmy Swiss Mad timepiece—its case hewn from Swiss cheese strengthened with resin—was intended as a statement against the loosening of regulations governing what can legitimately be classed as “Swiss made.”

The modern-day incarnation of Moser is perhaps best known for its “fumé” dials, artfully emblazoned with a smoky, graduated sunburst effect in a range of eye-catching colours, from vibrant blue, green and red to misty brown and grey.

The brand’s beautifully minimalist, Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix-winning perpetual calendar model is another Moser signature, famed for its ingeniously simple design, which uses a short central arrow hand to indicate the month.

All Moser watches are developed, constructed and hand-finished in-house, each of them powered by one of the brand’s proprietary movements. Today, H Moser & Cie’s 60 employees painstakingly handcraft just 1,500 watches per annum, hence the all-too-apt company tagline, “Very rare.” We reckon the brand’s story is just as rare a delight as the sight of one of those stunning fumé dials.

Find out more at h-moser.com

See also: World’s Biggest Display Of Luxury Watches Returns To Hong Kong