24 五月 2023
Meet Martina Egy– with her famously dexterous fingers all but permanently attached to a pair of specialised tweezers, our deputy head of watchmaking is a perpetual calendar whizz, and a real artist of engineering. Her quiet exterior belies an inner passion– much like the impeccable watches she creates.
I’ve worked at Moser nearly 10 years, and since the beginning I’ve worked on the Perpetual Calendar. It’s become my specialty, but I also work on other movements and encase the watches. When the Head of Watchmaking (Raphaël Frauenfelder) is away, I lead the watchmaking team.
And then of course there’s always a new challenge–for instance, the dial of the new Vantablack. It never gets boring. You might think it’s repetitive, which of course it is, but it’s never too long before a new challenge arrives!
I just love the mechanics of it–it’s truly fascinating. The functions are well known, but they are implemented in a completely different way from any other manufacturer. It takes up to 40 hours of work to do everything from A to Z, including setting and cleaning. And it’s incredibly resilient– you can do pretty much anything with these watches.
The ones with a Perpetual Calendar!
But there is another one I really like–the Endeavour Flying Hours. It’s a classic, but still original. It has the Endeavour case, but the display is different– instead of hands, you have three disks for the hours. And of course it’s a limited edition. All our watches are built here by our watchmakers, from the first to the very last step, so every watch really is a complete work of art.


In celebration of H. Moser & Cie.’s signature complication, the Endeavour Perpetual Calendar with a Funky Blue fumé dial and a transparent logo embodies the brand’s less is more philosophy. The month can be intuitively “read” at a glance using the existing 12 indices while the double-pull crown allows going forward and backward when setting at any time of the day or night.
DiscoverAbove all, patience. A steady, calm hand… and a calm disposition in general. It suits me perfectly, I must admit. I first started in industrial design, but when I realised that I could build a career in watchmaking–that was it. I loved it from the very first second.
I’ve always liked working with small, delicate things, and I’m thrilled by the mechanical aspects. You don’t always see it from the outside… when I look at a watch, I always imagine its inner life. It probably fascinates me more than the outward design.
It would have to be building in the date disk in the Perpetual Calendar. It’s only after this point that you can check everything is working accurately. I do this with two tweezers that are basically extensions of my fingers–I don’t even bother putting them down, they are part of my watchmaker’s hands! I also get so used to the magnifying glass on my glasses, I end up looking for it on my non-work glasses.
That’s an easy one: that all the watches I’ve assembled work perfectly. Very proud.
Team
Expert engineer, true artist, mad scientist, 21st century alchemist… you decide what title fits Raphael Frauenfelder best. We just call him our Head of Watchmaking, for want of a better term. Charmingly modest, he’d never tell you what a fantastic leader or inventor he is… but we will.
History
In Chapter Four, we talked to Mr. Balsiger about Moser’s unique identity– and his predictions for the future. From the meaning of luxury, to what makes Moser ‘very rare’, and a particularly fateful meeting with a Stranger on a Train. You can also catch up with Chapter One through Four here.
History
Interview with Roger Nicholas Balsiger, Honorary Chairman at H. Moser & Cie. In 2002, Roger Nicholas Balsiger received an unexpected phone call. Would he like to be involved, the caller asked, in a secret project of biblical ambition…
