BOUTIQUE
MB & F
Legacy Machine Perpetual , in Titanium .
IW RATING
Design : 9 ( out of 10 ) Beautifully proportioned method of displaying perpetual indications .
Innovation : 9 McDonnell ’ s technical updates set the bar higher for this complication .
Finissage : 9 MB ’ s Friends once again don ’ t let him down .
Legibility : 7 The eyes land on that spectacular suspended balance bridge .
Rarity : 8 Only 50 pieces .
Value : 9 It ’ s an award winner by an always in-demand brand .
Overall iW rating : 51 ( out of 60 )
HMB & F ’ s pre-Baselworld 2018 announcement in one sense lightens its Legacy Machine Perpetual , the independent company ’ s heaviest complication . Now with a titanium case and familiar blue-green accent , the new LM Perpetual will be available cased within a lighter , less precious metal than the previous gold or platinum models .
Despite its lighter case , the watch retains the same weighty technology inside . This newest LM Perpetual – limited to 50 pieces – offers the same groundbreaking LM Perpetual movement conceived by MB & F Friend Stephen McDonnell for the 2015 original .
The upshot of his groundbreaking design means the Legacy Machine Perpetual will operate with no skipped dates or jammed gears . Owners often inadvertently create problems within their perpetual calendars by attempting to reset them while the gears are mid-function , resulting in some damage to the highly complex date mechanism .
McDonnell ’ s design is proactive in a sense because when the user attempts to adjust the calendar , the movement ’ s pushers automatically deactivate so they don ’ t cause any damage to other components . At the heart of the difference is how the Legacy Machine Perpetual determines dates . Traditional perpetual calendars use a 31-day month as the default , changing , for example , from February 28 to March 1 quickly to arrive at the 1st . Interrupting the movement during this critical changeover can damage it . With this perpetual calendar movement , Busser and friends essentially replaced that traditional system with a mechanical processor that instead utilizes that default 28-day month and adds extra days only as required . This means that each month always has the exact number of days required built in to its system . The mechanism won ’ t fast-forward or skip redundant days , eliminating the chance that a user will interrupt the changeover process and damage the movement . What ’ s more , McDonnell ’ s design also makes it simpler to reset the date during a leap year . Where many traditional perpetual calendars require the user to scroll through up to forty-seven months , this new perpetual has a dedicated quickset pusher to adjust the year .
This is the movement that in its initial version and with a gold or platinum case took the prize for Best Calendar Watch at the 2016 Grand Prix d ’ Horlogerie de Genève . It ’ s just as beautiful with its new skin . Price : $ 148,000 .
28 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | SUMMER 2018