Created in collaboration with Agenhor SA, the new limited edition H. Moser & Cie. Endeavour Chinese Calendar combines the lunisolar calendar with the Gregorian calendar, displaying the Chinese zodiac and moonphases without requiring corrections for twelve years.

The 18kt 5N red gold case is 40mm with a thickness of 13mm and its crown has the Moser ‘M’ on it. The dial is Midnight Blue fumé with a sunburst pattern and has the H. Moser & Cie logo in transparent lacquer. The indices are applied and the hour, minute and small seconds hands are leaf-shaped.

So let’s get down to the functions of this new model – hours and minutes, small seconds, indication of Chinese zodiac years, what is called the embolismic month at 12 o’clock, and a retrograde of the Chinese calendar months. There is also a retrograde display of the lunar days, moonphase, and a Gregorian date at 6 o’clock.

The Gregorian calendar is exclusively solar, but the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar is primarily lunar, tracking the cycles of the moon, but also taking into account the solar patterns. A lunisolar calendar is based on monthly lunar cycles and solar years. Solar calendars have annual cycles based just on the solar year.

Because the lunar calendar is based on the lunar cycles (one orbit of the Earth taking 29.53 days), the Chinese months have 29 or 30 days, with twelve lunar months i.e. an average lunar year is 354.36 days as compared to the 365.25 days of a solar year.

Intercalation or embolism (as mentioned above) is the insertion of a leap day, week, or month into some calendar years to make the calendar follow the seasons or moon phases – a solar year does not have time period which is in whole days, but a calendar year must have a whole number of days, which leads to the leap year situation.

Lunisolar calendars have a thirteenth month every two to three years which are embolismic, added to keep the lunar years aligned with the four seasons. The Endeavour Chinese Calendar Limited Edition indicates this extra month.

We mentioned that the watch doesn’t require corrections for twelve years (how long the Chinese zodiac cycle lasts). According to H.Moser & Cie, this is made possible by two cams that work in parallel to keep count, using feelers, of the Chinese months. At the end of this cycle, the cams will be changed for the next twelve year period during servicing (don’t, as they say, try this at home).

Powering this impressive watch is the automatic in-house HMC 210 which beats at 21,600 VPH and has a power reserve of three days. Based on their HMC 200 movement, this calibre has a module developed by Agenhor SA. It has an 18kt gold rotor and features Moser stripes.

Limited to one hundred pieces, the new Endeavour Chinese Calendar comes on a brown alligator leather strap with an 18kt red gold folding clasp and has an RRP of CHF 68,000.

[Photo credit: H. Moser & Cie.]

Categories: H. Moser & Cie, Limited Editions, Watch Profile, watches