Moser Introduces Three New Versions Of Its Signature Retrograde Seconds Complication

Moser introduced its first retrograde seconds in 2024 as the Pioneer Retrograde Seconds Midnight Blue, and it was a very attractive and well-thought-out variation on the complication. A retrograde seconds display is not very complex in terms of parts count, but Moser rose very well to the challenge of creating one which showed how the retrograde seconds actually works, without producing something so visually complex that it fought against the graceful simplicity of the retrograde seconds. Having succeeded with the first version, Moser’s now introduced new models in the Pioneer, Endeavour, and Streamliner collections, meaning it’s available across the board in everything but the pilot’s watch-adjacent Heritage Collection.

The most straightforward of the three models is the new Endeavour Retrograde Seconds.

This is the retrograde seconds display as an exercise in deliberate minimalism, which is an approach found in Moser’s watchmaking in general – for an example you need only look at Moser’s perpetual calendars, in which the calendar indications are reduced to the point that it can be difficult to believe they’re actually perpetual calendars. The new Endeavour model has a 40mm x 11.2mm steel case, with 30 meters of water resistance, and as with the 2024 model, and the three new models, the retrograde seconds display was developed in partnership with complications specialist Agenhor (Moser acquired a minority stake in Agenhor in April of 2023).

The complication is clearly and cleanly displayed and it is instantly apparent how it works. The seconds hand is mounted on a spiral spring, with the pinion of the hand geared to a rack with a sharply curved nose riding on a snail cam just above it. As the cam rotates, the rack pivots clockwise, rotating the seconds hand to the right until it reaches the thirty second mark. At the moment that it does so, the nose of the rack drops off the highest point of the snail cam, onto the cam’s lowest point, causing the rack to rapidly snap back in a counterclockwise direction under the pressure of the second hand’s spiral spring. The seconds hand then snaps instantly back to the left, and the whole cycle begins again.

Caliber HMC 252 is an automatic, running at 21,600 vph, with a 3 day power reserve and Moser’s in-house Straumann balance spring.

Price for the Endeavour Retrograde Seconds is $32,500 at launch.

The Pioneer Skeleton, on the other hand, takes a more maximalist approach, with the dial opened up to show the mainspring barrel at 12:00, the keyless works and motion works (the term for the gears that move the hour and minute hands) and, of course, the retrograde seconds complication.

The movement is designated caliber HMC 251, but although the name is only slightly different, and the basic technical features are the same, it’s dramatically different from the Endeavour. The retrograde seconds complication is here a harmonious part of a larger composition, with the bridge for the mainspring barrel mirroring the arc of the retrograde seconds display, with the gold and anthracite color scheme of the moving swapped in for the fumé dial of the Endeavour model.

Price at launch is $44,100.

Finally, the Streamliner Retrograde seconds combines the complication with one of Moser’s most popular case and bracelet designs.

The Streamliner Retrograde Seconds shares some of the purity of design of the Endeavour, but the integrated bracelet design’s biomorphic curves in combination with the complication, give it its own unique character – a retro-modernist, Art Deco sense of the celebration of mechanics. Here the color scheme is blue-on-steel, and the rotor is finished in anthracite, echoing the view through the caseback of the Endeavour model, but giving the same neo-futurist feel as the dial side of the watch, thanks to the Streamliner case and bracelet.

Price at launch is $37,300.

The retrograde seconds complication can have a bit of a me-to0 feel, as in its simplest version – one that isn’t part of, say, a perpetual calendar or chronograph – it is not difficult to implement. However, this simplicity in the new Moser Retrograde Seconds watches is deliberately transformed, by the details of its technical implementation, into an exercise in lyrical clarity. These ought to do well, and I imagine there will be Moser collectors who’ll want all three, since each one has its own particular aesthetic value proposition.

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