MB&F & L’Epee
1839 Team Up for Grant
MB&F’s co-creations with L’Epee 1839 have consistently extracted smiles from
even the most serious watch enthusiasts. You may recall the too-cute, dual-tread robotic
Sherman, from 2016, which MB&F said “makes people smile, which is probably the
world's most useful and emotionally valuable complication.”
Earlier in 2018, Sherman met Grant, MB&F’s latest animated co-creation with Swiss
clockmakers L’Epee 1839. While the names may suggest a replay of the Civil War, both
these co-creations are actually battling for the same thing: enjoyable timing.
Grant succeeds by transforming itself as it displays a simple hours and minutes dial.
Moving across a desk using three tank-like rubber treads, the 6.5-inch-tall polished steel
and brass Grant can transform into one of three positions to display an easy-to-read
“time-shield” dial: lying horizontally over its chassis; crouching at 45 degrees or sitting up
at 90 degrees.
Thus, Grant allows its owner to set the Grant time shield to a comfortable
viewing angle.
Whatever angle Grant’s owner chooses, the highly polished L’Epee clock is easy
to see. When the dial is facing forward, the movement’s mainspring barrel click (which
appears near Grant’s ‘belly button’) can be mesmerizing. The movement is housed
inside a glass-domed ‘brain,’ which MB&F suggests viewers watch tick (or think) as a
stress-relief exercise.
Grant’s brain is of course made by L’Epee 1839, and it boasts an eight-day in-line
manufacture movement with the same fine finishing found on all MB&F/L’Epee 1839
creations: Geneva waves, anglage, polishing, sandblasting, plus circular and vertical
satin finishing. MB&F notes that hand finishing a clock movement is significantly more
challenging than polishing a wristwatch due to the larger surface areas of the
clock components.
There’s more to Grant however than mobile, transformative time-display. The
machine’s left arm holds a spinning disk while its right arm clasps a removable grenade
launcher—which doubles as the winding and time-setting key for the clockwork. The
movement’s regulator (balance and escapement) utilizes Incabloc shock protection,
a superior protective design typically found in wristwatches, but not clocks. Why?
Because, as MB&F reminds us, Grant is not a stationary clock. Grant is a robot on a
mission to transform time. Grant is available in three limited editions of fifty pieces each
in nickel, black and blue. Price: $22,600.
WINTER 2019 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | 67