About time: independents' day

I've learnt three things in my thirty-something years of existence. First, never march on Moscow. Second, never commit to a land war in Asia. And third, never talk politics at a polite middle-class dinner party. Alas, the last lesson was only recently learnt as I argued that 2014 could be the Year of Independence if separatist Scots and Catalans have their way - of course, all hell then broke loose. Still, never one to be cowed, I will harp on about the joys of independence, if somewhat obliquely and subliminally, as we talk about watches, or rather, independent brands.

Independent watch brands tend to be the mavericks, the guys who invent new things or ways of thinking before the big boys come along to steal their ideas, or their staff. So in tribute to their endeavours, this week we look at three of the finest independent watchmakers.

An independent Swiss company in the traditional sense is one like H. Moser & Cie, where multiple generations are involved. Former Audemars Piguet chief executive Georges-Henri Meylan, along with his two sons, revived the historic H. Moser & Cie brand and are now creating ingeniously simple but complicated watches. The company's ethos is summed up by the Perpetual Calendar, which was first introduced in 2006, to general chin-stroking admiration. Most perpetual-calendar watches have a busy dial face but H. Moser's version is totally different. Its clean and simple dial has a date window at the three o'clock position and small seconds at the six o'clock position, but the ingenious bit is the small arrow hand that indicates the months in a mechanism H. Moser & Cie calls the Flash Date Calendar, which switches quickly and smoothly as days tick over to the next month. Other impressive features include the seven-day power-reserve function with the stripped down retrograde reserve indicator located at the nine o'clock position and, on the back, a leap-year indicator, if you're really desperate to know. Pictured (right) is the new black DLC (diamond-like carbon)-cased Perpetual Calendar but this is the watch that made H. Moser & Cie's name so it comes in a variety of materials and colours. Prices are available upon request.

Next we have Manufacture Contemporaine du Temps or MCT as it is, thankfully, more widely known. This is a brand I knew little about until the Sequential One S110 (below left) caught my eye at BaselWorld in March, for its modern styling and innovative hour indicator. I had read about the sequential "flipping" digital display but you need to see it in person to fully understand how clever and incredibly difficult to create the movement was. The watch has a grade-five titanium case with black DLC coating and an MCT-S1 movement inside. The industrial look of the watch won't be to everyone's taste though. Prices are available upon request.

Finally, we come to an About time favourite, the independent watch brand par excellence that is MB&F. Maximilian Busser and Friends are still fighting the good fight after all these years and their watches are still as eye-catching, forward-thinking and imaginative as ever. Horological Machine No4, or HM4 Thunderbolt (below right), stands out for its audacity but this isn't a watch for the faint of heart. Coming in a grade-five titanium body that resembles two jet engines strapped together, the HM4 Thunderbolt is a 3D watch, which forces the wearer to engage with it in order to read the time. One of the "jet engines" is an orthodox hours, minutes and seconds dial face and the other a power-reserve indicator, power reserve being 72 hours. Needless to say, the movement or "engine" is 100 per cent created by MB&F. The world is certainly a better place with brands like MB&F in it. Prices are available upon request.