H. Moser & Cie. Try Tantalum For First Time

The brand is joining colleagues who've already had success using this rare metal.

Despite the complexity involved in its finishing, tantalum has won over many a manufacture with its unusual color transition from dark gray to blue. Unlike titanium, gray tantalum certainly can't boast being a lightweight metal.

The element discovered in Sweden in 1802 is perfectly suited to those of us who like feeling the weight of their favorite accessory on the wrist. There has been the Urwerk UR-105 TTH "Tantalum Hull", Omega Seamaster Diver 300M, Panerai Luminor Marina Tantalium, the Hublot Big Bang Tantalum Gray Chronograph, a few versions of Audemars Piguet's Royal Oak.

Now the turn has come for H.  Moser & Cie. with the new Endeavour Perpetual Calendar Tantalum Blue Enamel. Investment, technology and the necessary know-how — working with tantalum requires special preparations. That's why the journey taken by H.  Moser & Cie. took so long, even though H. Moser & Cie.

CEO Edouard Meylan admits dreaming of tantalum ever since it first appeared in his personal collection. Meylan received his first piece of haute horlogerie from his parents when he turned 18. And it was made of tantalum.

Youthful dreams need to be fulfilled, and so tantalum appeared at H. Moser & Cie. And it appeared with a rare finish: machining and finishing this hard metal with a melting point of 3000 °C is far more difficult than sandblasting.

The watch looks deceptively simple at first glance but it actually offers a fresh take on one of the most popular complications: the perpetual calendar.

The date aperture at 3 o'clock factors in all the ins and the outs of the Gregorian calendar. And the small central hand transforms the usual 12-hour cycle into a 12-month cycle, where 6 o'clock serves as June, for example.

The Endeavour Perpetual Calendar Tantalum Blue Enamel houses a manually wound manufacture movement: caliber HMC 800 with an impressive week's worth of power reserve. You can keep track of it by checking the neat scale at 9 o'clock.

The dial's central hammered texture is applied to a gold base, coated with layers of Grand Feu enamel. The master uses twelve cycles for firing and three for the pigments, which results in the creation of its "Abyss Blue" color with a fumé effect, where the blue becomes richer moving out from the center towards the edge.