Count it down now — the Starfleet Machine, Melchior, the Arachnophobia and, most recently, Sherman at SIHH 2016 — that’s four incredible table clocks that MB&F has designed in partnership with L’Epée 1839, Switzerland’s last standing maker of high-end clocks.
And now add to that a fifth clock created by the dynamic duo — meet, Balthazar.
The robot-table clock’s name does seem to stir a rather ominous note in the imagination. Try Googling it. I don’t know about you, but for me the first thing that came up was the link to an NY based french cafe. But I could’ve sworn that I had heard the name used before in the context of a dark entity — a demon no less.
Lo and behold, Google does suggest the name paired with the word ‘demon’ if you become persistent. That’s when it dawned on me — WoW. And I don’t mean that as an exclamation, but the renowned acronym, which stands for World of Warcraft.
For those who have not wasted countless hours of your youth behind the computer screen playing the immensely successful MMORPG, or massively multiplayer online role-playing game entitled World of Warcraft — where the Demon Lord Balthazar was the last of a race of evil creatures bent on destroying the kingdom of Valorn.
The other instance of the name (this time on a more serious note) is most certainly nothing of the underworldly nature, though, it is biblical. Balthazar also happens to be the name of one of the three wise men who came to see baby Jesus in the manger. The others being Gaspar and Melchior.