As often as possible, I like to cover small and start-up watch brands. I know how difficult it can be to obtain media and consumer attention as a fledgling company. And I also appreciate how smaller brands can push designs in innovative ways untethered from design constraints required in larger and more historical brands. Most notably I think back to RGM and its early-20th-Century-inspired pieces like the 151-COE and Nezumi?s 1960s- and ’70s-inspired Voiture chronograph.
 
The most recent to catch my eye has been the Stockholm-based brand Maen. The name (pronounced ?mun?) is an old-Dutch spelling for “moon,” and for the brand stands as a double symbol: firstly, it references the moon as a symbolic timekeeper ? a sentiment that takes shape in the brand?s first quartz moon-phase watches. Secondly, the name is a reference to the Dutch ship Halve Maen (or half-moon) which first brought European cartographers and surveyors to Manhattan Island in 1609.
The Swedish brand was founded about two and half years ago by Dutchmen Sebastiaan Cortjaens and Jules van Helvoort, and their most recent release is the Hudson Automatic. The name of the watch? like the name of the brand ? is a reference to the English captain of the Halve Maen, Henry Hudson (for whom the Hudson River is named). It is the company’s first mechanical timepiece, and in the wake of the incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign launched to fund it, it has received wide attention in the media c...