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Dress Watch H.Moser &Cie Replica Hands-on

HANDS-ON With H.Moser Cie Swiss AlpWatch

Remember this video? As a piece of low cost guerilla marketing it was inspired, with its coverage far and wide amongst tech press, many (most?) of whom didn’t really seem to get the point, or humour.

If nothing else, the dial makes it unmistakably Moser but when I held it, did I think of the Fruit Replica Watch or the Swiss Alp? Interestingly (to me), the latter. When it came out, when I posted the video, all I could think of was this replica watch as a ‘statement’, but it’s really more than that.

I found that I was not thinking that this is one brand’s playful message to the Fruit Replica Watch when I held it, when I tried it on. I was simply on what was before me. As one would expect of a well made white gold replica watch it feels solid, enduring. This isn’t a wrist piece with a very short shelf life, and as a replica watch (versus as a ‘reaction’) it does stand on its own.

 

Inside is something that doesn’t have an inbuilt obsolescence – the in-house manual wind Calibre HMC 324 (18,000 VPH) with hacking seconds and four days of power reserve (a power reserve indicator is visible on  the back). This is a movement that measures 32.0mm x 36.0mm x 4.80mm, made to fit snugly into the case, and hand finished and decorated.

So yes the video is an err ‘homage’; the shape is the same, the size similar (38.2mm x 44.0mm x 10.3mm), the lugs similar (although wire lugs are hardly new to replica watches) to the Fruit Replica Watch, but it is made of white gold, and otherwise vastly different.

With its signature Moser fumé sunburst dial with leaf-shaped hour and minute hands and coming on a kudu leather strap in ‘Moser green’, the Swiss Alp is limited to 50 pieces and priced at USD 24,900.

 

Would I wear it? Possibly.