News · Sugess

Sugess puts a big date and a moon phase under a goldstone dial for US$189

The MoonPhase Master S401C pairs a 41 mm steel case and sapphire crystal with a Seagull ST2528, a twin-aperture big date and a 59-tooth moon phase.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 4 min read · 17 August 2026

• Sugess has listed the MoonPhase Master S401C, a 41 mm automatic with a blue goldstone dial, a twin-aperture big date and a moon phase display.
• The moon phase runs on a traditional 59-tooth wheel stepping through a 29.5 day cycle, corrected by a pusher set into the side of the case.
• It is priced at US$189 on the brand's own store, is not limited, and carries no separate Australian price.

A night sky for the price of a decent strap

Every few years the watch industry rediscovers the idea of putting a sparkling mineral slab where a dial should be, and the resulting watches are usually priced as if the sparkle were rare. It is not, particularly. The material most of these dials use is a copper-flecked glass that the trade calls blue goldstone, made in quantity, and the honest gap between a five-figure version and a cheap one is the case, the movement and the finishing rather than the twinkle itself. Which is the useful context for the Sugess MoonPhase Master S401C, listed by the brand this week at US$189.

The dial is the reason anyone will look twice. It is deep navy, dense with copper flecks that catch the light in a way photographs exaggerate and eyes forgive, closer to the ceiling of a planetarium than to actual stars. Applied baton markers sit around the outside in polished steel, and Sugess has kept the printing to a signature and the word Moonphase, which is restraint that this material needs. A busy dial in goldstone reads as a mess.

Two complications interrupt it, and both sit on the vertical axis. A big date sits high under twelve in a twin-aperture window with a steel frame, which is a display normally associated with German watchmaking and a rare thing at this money. Below the centre, the moon phase runs in a half-circle aperture with a small enamel-blue disc carrying a green and white moon, and there is a pointer scale around it marking the age of the moon. Dauphine hands, faceted and polished, do the rest.

The 59-tooth wheel, and how wrong it will be by 2029

Sugess is specific about the moon phase gearing, which I appreciate, because most brands at this price simply say "moon phase" and hope. It runs on a 59-tooth wheel, the traditional solution, which steps the display through a 29.5-day cycle. The actual lunar month is 29.53 days, so the display loses roughly a day every two and a half to three years, and correcting it is a matter of nudging it forward with the case-side pusher. That drift is simply the arithmetic of a 59-tooth wheel, and it has been the arithmetic since the eighteenth century.

Inside is the Seagull ST2528, an automatic running at 3 Hz with a stated power reserve of more than 48 hours, and Sugess has dressed it rather than leaving it raw: perlage on the plate, polished surfaces and engraving, visible through an exhibition caseback. At 21,600 vibrations per hour the seconds sweep is slightly steppier than the 4 Hz movements most people are used to, which is the sort of thing that bothers nobody until somebody points it out, so I am sorry.

The case measures 41 mm across and 13 mm thick in 316L stainless steel, polished on the flanks with curved, slightly drooping lugs and a fluted onion crown. Thirteen millimetres is not slim, and on a 41 mm dress-styled watch it is the number I would want reduced before anything else, though a domed crystal and a case that curves down at the lugs both work in its favour on the wrist. The crystal is sapphire, which at this price is the single most important line on the spec sheet.

What US$189 does and does not buy

Water resistance is 5 ATM, which the brand states as 50 metres. Read that as everyday protection: rain, a splashed sink, hands washed without thinking. It is not a swimming rating regardless of what the number suggests, and a moon phase with a pusher in the case flank is not a watch to test in a pool anyway.

The strap is the part where the money runs out, as it usually does at this end of the market. Sugess supplies a leather band in navy with a croc-style print, and it looks perfectly reasonable in the brand's photographs, but a strap is the cheapest thing to upgrade and the one that changes the most. I would budget another thirty or forty dollars and be done with it.

What is genuinely interesting here is not the watch on its own, but where it sits. A Chinese-made automatic with a big date, a moon phase, a sapphire crystal and a decorated movement, at a price that would not cover the deductible on a Swiss service, is the sort of thing that used to be impossible and is now merely unremarkable. That shift has happened quietly, over about a decade, and the watch press has not entirely caught up with it.

Sugess MoonPhase Master S401C pricing and availability

The MoonPhase Master S401C is listed on Sugess's own store at US$189, published this week, and it is not a limited edition. Sugess prices in US dollars and does not publish an Australian figure on its own storefront, so a local buyer is looking at international shipping plus whatever duty applies at the border. The brand states an English instruction manual is included, which matters more than it sounds when the moon phase needs setting.

If you want the honest summary: at US$189 this is a lot of watch and a slightly awkward one, thick where it wants to be thin, and carrying a dial material that will either delight you or look like a novelty depending on the light. I lean towards delight. The moon is green, which is astronomically incorrect and, at this price, entirely forgivable.