Introducing the MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual Yellow Gold

There are understated watches designed to fly under the radar, and then there is MB&F. This is watchmaking that unashamedly announces itself as performance art, and the brand has made so many strikingly original sci-fi-inspired pieces that fans raised an eyebrow when MB&F even dared to start making watches with round cases. The Legacy Machine Perpetual has a round case, but that is about as traditional as it gets.

MB&F first launched the Legacy Machine Perpetual in 2015 and went on to win the Best Calendar Watch prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève the following year. MB&F has now unveiled a new blue-dialled version with an 18K gold case to add to the earlier versions in red gold, white gold, platinum and titanium.

MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual Yellow Gold
MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual Yellow Gold
MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual Yellow Gold
MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual Yellow Gold

The LM Perpetual comes from the combined creative flair of MB&F founder Maximilian Büsser and the Northern Irish watchmaker Stephen McDonnell, a long-time friend of the brand. The pair set about creating a perpetual calendar that would put more of the moving parts on display, and also eliminate the drawbacks of conventional perpetual calendars — like skipping dates and the potential for damage if you adjust the watch while the date is changing.

Büsser said: “I call perpetual ‘calendars boomerang’ watches because they come back for repair so often — the mechanisms jam, block, break, or jump days when they shouldn’t.”

The fully integrated, purpose-built movement of the LM Perpetual was designed from scratch and features adjuster pushers that automatically deactivate when the calendar changes. To avoid skipping each month goes to 28 days then adds days on rather than passing over the final days of a 31-day month like a traditional calendar. This patent-pending “mechanical processor” — consisting of a series of superimposed disks — leads, according to MB&F, to a smoother change with no scope for getting the date wrong.

MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual Yellow Gold
MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual Yellow Gold
MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual Yellow Gold
MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual Yellow Gold

“The aim was to create a calendar which is fool-proof,” said McDonnell. “You can push the correctors whenever you like, you can manipulate it, however, you like.”

McDonnell added that presenting the movement to be admired was just as important a part of the design process. “The star of the show is the mechanism,” he said. “What is the point in creating something that looks amazing, which functions beautifully and is completely innovative — and then covering it up? We have combined the parts of the display within the mechanism itself, parts of it are sunk down inside. There is no real difference between the display and the mechanism and the dials appear to completely float in mid-air.”

The Legacy Machine collection began with the Legacy Machine No. 1 in 2011. It was the result of Büsser asking himself what life would have been like if he had been born a century earlier and was making watches in the early 1900s. “I would want to create three-dimensional machines for the wrist,” he said. “But Grendizers, Star Wars, and fighter jets would not have been around for my inspiration. But I do have pocket watches, the Eiffel Tower, and Jules Verne, so what might my 1900s machine look like? It has to be round and it has to be three-dimensional.”

The magnificently many-layered MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual, with its characteristic balance wheel placed front and centre, is available in yellow gold in a limited run of 25 pieces.

MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual Yellow Gold
MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual Yellow Gold

Technical Specifications

Movement

Fully integrated 581-component hand-wound perpetual calendar movement with double mainspring barrels

Case

44mm 18k yellow gold with blue face. Also available in platinum 950 with blue face; 18k red gold with grey face; 18k white gold with purple face; 18k white gold with dark grey face; grade-5 titanium with green face.

Strap

Blue hand-stitched alligator leather with 18k gold buckle

Price

CHF 158,000 (before taxes)

Find out more at www.MBandF.com

return-to-top__image
Back to Top