Haim Watch Company, a Chicago-based microbrand, marked its fifth anniversary in 2025 by introducing an intriguing new timepiece called the Annum. I first saw the watch last fall at the WindUp Watch Fair in New York City, where the brand’s founder, M. Zakir Miah, brought along a prototype that immediately caught my attention. Visitors at the event received a sneak peek of the Annum alongside previous creations like the Viajero worldtimer, a model I reviewed last year. Since that initial preview, the Annum has undergone a bit of an evolution, including a subtly redesigned case and a few small tweaks to the dial. In its final iteration, the Annum offers a compelling complete calendar watch that punches well above its weight and continues what Haim Watch Company has achieved with its Viajero: creative, supremely wearable takes on complications that stand out the price point.
The Annum comes in three dial variations. “Dark Cobalt” and “Stone White” are solid-colored dials with a sunken-in CNC guilloché center section and applied hour markers on the grained outer dial ring. But when it was time to pick which variant I’d spend some time with for this hands-on, it was the semi-transparent “Fumée” dial that I wanted to see, and it wasn’t even close. From afar, the Fumée iteration reminds me of the dials of great skeletonized perpetual calendars of old, thanks to the display of the module underneath the smoked PVC (plastic) dial. On this dial, the subdial rings and minutes track are printed in contrasting white and blue, with the moonphase cutout outlined in white. What you lose in depth with the transparent dial, you gain back when you take a close look at the underlying mechanical module on full display, which we’ll get to in a little bit. The leaf-style hour and minute hands match the steel of the case, while the calendar complication indicators are all heat-blue.
Yes, despite the name “Annum” and a dial layout many of us might be more used to seeing on annual and perpetual calendars, this is a complete calendar watch with a moonphase. You’re getting all the information you need from the symmetrical display of four subdials—three for the date, day, and months, as well as that moonphase at six o’clock. But the big compromise at the price point—$2,149.99— is the manual intervention, as any month with a length shorter than 31 days will need to be manually corrected via the recessed pushers on the sides of the case at the end of said months. The Annum comes with a small adjuster tool for the pushers, but like most watches that come with these, I find myself very liable to lose them, especially when traveling. Toothpicks for me usually do the trick.
In practice, the only pusher you really need to remember is the one on the lower right for the date, which you’ll need to use five out of the twelve months of the year—February, of course, along with April, June, September, and November, assuming the Annum is constantly wound throughout the year. But if you’re setting the Annum after not wearing it for a while, the pusher on the top right of the case adjusts the month, while that one on the lower right adjusts the date. The top left pusher accounts for the day of the week, while the bottom left adjusts the moonphase. And like with most date complications, there is a danger window, which the brand says is from 9:00 pm – 1:00 am. When in doubt, set the time to something like 6:30 before activating any of those corrector pushers.
As with the case with some of Haim Watch Company’s releases (pun intended), the Annum is surprisingly compact, with a diameter of 38mm and a lug-to-lug of 45mm. While it might not necessarily seem like a thin watch on paper, at 12mm tall, it really does not feel as thick on the wrist. The smaller case diameter certainly helps here, but elements like the double-stepped bezel, smaller screwed-in caseback, and a few other elements help give the optics of a rather slim midcase relative to its actual measurement. For the price point, there is a good amount of contrasting finishing on the steel case, with polishing and vertical brushing interplaying with the light. My favorite touch is the detailing of the modern take on Cornes-de-Vache lugs, which works incredibly well on the wrist.
Housed within the case is the brand’s customized mechanical caliber, HWC-02, which is regulated to +/- 10 seconds a day. The value of this complete calendar lies in the execution of the movement here. The base, time-only caliber is taken from the Miyota 9000 line of movements, and Miah has combined that with his own proprietary calendar module above it to create the mechanical engine of the Annum. This type of ingenuity, like with his implementation of the worldtime functionality via a simple GMT movement in the Viajero, is what continues to keep me interested in what the brand has to show. And it’s the biggest reason why I think the smoked Fumée dial is the way to go here, as it’s a great way to show off that module under the dial. Miah cites inspiration for this module from ETA’s long-gone 2890-9 perpetual calendar movement. While his initial plan was to source those movements for a true perpetual-calendar watch, Miah tells me that he could only locate around 5 new-old-stock calibers, many of them riddled with issues. So in a true “screw it, I’ll do it myself” attitude, he came up with the Annum as it is.
The finishing of the HWC-02 is interesting, as there’s quite a bit of visual flourish visible through the exhibition caseback. Striping on the plates, while industrial, looks quite nice for the price point, but the homage to a hand-engraved balance cock is a bit too ambitious compared to its final result. The Annum also features an interesting rotor, with a gold-colored weight screwed onto a transparent disc to give off the illusion of a peripheral rotor. There are a lot of easter eggs here for the watch nerds.
On the wrist is where the Annum really punches above its weight class. There’s not really another way to put it—I think it looks absolutely fantastic on the wrist. It is a great homage to highly complicated vintage calendar watches, while still feeling unique and a touch modern in its execution. Sizing feels great on the variety of wrists I saw try the Annum on, and while it certainly wouldn’t win in a loupe fight compared to watches priced many multiples more (duh), it really hits that sweet spot in the microbrand space under $2,500.
Unlike many microbrand watches, however, this one probably wouldn’t be my pick to recommend to someone starting out their collection, due to the pusher adjustments required many months out of the year. But what still fascinates me about the Annum is that it bridges the gap between value-driven designs in the microbrand space and a compelling mechanical proposition at such a highly competitive price point. Perhaps one day we’ll see Miah design a perpetual calendar module from the ground up (or even a true annual calendar), but in the meantime, this’ll certainly do.
