The story of how H. Moser & Cie came to the creation of their latest timepieces is one of those times where a joke has misfired. On April Fool’s day 2019, H. Moser & Cie released a touched-up photo of a watch with a black dial and blackened hands to their social media account. The idea behind it was to show an almost invisible watch, as a joke. What they probably weren’t expecting was the barrage of requests from fans and interested customers to buy the piece. Instead of letting it be just a joke; H. Moser & Cie decided to go out and make it.
Now with the unveiling of H. Moser & Cie’s brand new online sales platform, the brand has released three new watches to commemorate the event. As you may have guessed, these three watches are the all-black timepieces. Not just any black though, the darkest black ever produced artificially. The three timepieces released by the brand are: the Venturer Vantablack Black Hands, Venturer Vantablack Black Hands XL and the Endeavour Tourbillon Vantablack Black Hands. As the name suggests, Vantablack is the black colour used on the dial of these watches.
Endeavour Tourbillon Vantablack Black Hands, Reference: 1804-1206 
Venturer Vantablack Black Hands XL , Reference: 2327-1213 
Venturer Vantablack Black Hands, Reference: 2327-0222
Vantablack is the darkest black ever to be produced by artificial means. Vantablack is composed of carbon nanotubes which are 10, 000 times finer when compared to human hair, which gets aligned vertically alongside each other. Vantablack is perceived as the absence of matter and appears to be almost like a black hole.
The reason why Vantablack appears incredibly dark is because we need reflected light to perceive what we are looking at. When a photon hits the Vantablack material, the absorption rate is 99.965%, meaning reflected light is well…almost nothing! This awe-inspiring material is developed for the likes of astrophysics in the use of telescopes and thermal camouflage for the military to increase their stealth level.
H. Moser & Cie have taken this material to create the three new exceptional timepieces. All three watches are very simplistic in design with only the tourbillon version showing a technical feature on the dial beside the hour and minute hand. And simply put, this is all that the watches need. The highlight of these pieces is the dial colour. If hour indexes and other details were to remain on the dial, it would detract attention away from the colour.
The Venturer Vantablack Black Hands feature an 18K white gold 39mm case which has a curved sapphire crystal case for the front and see-through case back sapphire crystal for the back. A power reserve indicator is displayed on the case back of the watch. The Venturer Vantablack Black Hands comes with a hand-stitched black alligator leather strap that includes an 18k white gold pin buckle engraved with the Moser logo.
The Venturer Vantablack Black Hands XL is a similar design to the first model, with the exception being that it’s now enclosed in a 43mm steel case. The pin buckle on the leather strap is made from steel as well, matching the watch casing. Both Venturer Vantablack Black Hands models feature the same hand-wound H. Moser & Cie in-house 327 manufacture calibre movement. The HMC 327 calibre produces approximately three days (72 hours) of power reserve.
The stand out of the three models is the Endeavour Tourbillon Vantablack Black Hands. This limited edition model (limited to 50 pieces) comes in a black DLC-finished Steel 42mm case. The highlight feature of this piece (besides dial colour of course) is the one-minute flying tourbillon at 6’oclock position, with the neatly skeletonised bridges coated in black PVD. H. Moser & Cie have looked to the aeronautical industry as the source of inspiration to use aluminium on the tourbillon cage, cage wheel, balance wheel and escapement bridge. For the Endeavour Tourbillon Vantablack Black Hands, H. Moser & Cie have used their 804 self-winding manufacture calibre, which puts out approximately three days (72 hours) of power reserve.
The Endeavour Tourbillon Vantablack Black Hands comes with a hand-stitched black alligator leather along with steel folding buckle with black DLC coating, which is engraved with the Moser logo.
With what might have initially been a joke, H. Moser & Cie has proved once again with their latest three-piece release that the passion and heart of the watch world is not merely about telling time, but rather evoking emotion.
