Six years after MB&F debuted its Legacy Machine N°2 collection, the company is releasing another limited edition of 12 pieces in red gold case with a blue dial, the Legacy Machine N°2 Red Gold Blue.

MB&F’s calling card is in consistently imagining and producing some of the zaniest timepieces in the business. These would have mattered much less were they not also anchored in the very best of classical watchmaking. As such, MB&F’s creations not only serve up giggles and wonder, they are also very much coveted as compositions of horological art.

In particular, the Legacy Machine (LM) series which was unveiled in 2011 was the company’s first round-cased watch. The choice of such a conventional case shape was to ground the collection’s aesthetics on 19th century pocket watches. But even then, the LM1 defied convention by wearing its balance above the dial. All the better to showcase the architectural beauty of a mechanical watch movement, we say.

This was followed in 2013 by the LM2, in three case metals, white gold, red gold and platinum. This time, the LM2 sported not one but twin balance wheels perched above the dial, MB&F’s radical realisation of one of the rarest and most esoteric complications in watchmaking, the dual regulator watch. The idea is that while a lone regulator can be affected by a host of factors that throw it off consistent oscillations, having two regulators, whether oscillating in sympathy or connected by a differential, can serve to moderate these disruptions and hence achieve more accurate, consistent timekeeping. In the LM2, the movement produced in a collaboration between Jean-François Mojon and Kari Voutilainen features two regulators joined by a planetary differential that averages out the rate deviations. This way, the LM2 pays tribute to Ferdinand Berthoud (1727–1807), who built the earliest known timepiece with two regulators averaged by a differential; and Philippe Dufour who created the “Duality”, the first wristwatch to contain dual regulators and a differential.

The latest version of the LM2 announced today sports a stunning deep blue dial, produced by chemical vapour deposition (CVD). Like the more recent LM2 editions, it also relies on the second-generation, rounded and polished bridges to secure the dual “flying” balance wheels. The LM2 Red Gold Blue is issued in a limited edition of 12 pieces, with a retail price of CHF148,000 (USD156,000).