MB&F Unveils A First For The Brand And A Sure-Fire Must-Have Legacy Machine

Rarely does independent watch brand MB&F create a watch in stainless steel. Those owners of a M.A.D. 1 watch are thrilled he did. However, it is not a normal occurrence. Neither is a salmon colored dial – a hue the brand used only once. Now, however, with the new Legacy Machine Perpetual Stainless Steel watch – with salmon dial plate – MB&F lovers can get the best of both worlds.

The Legacy Machine Perpetual Stainless Steel / salmon dial watch is not going to be a limited edition, either. However, it will be limited simply by the production capacity of MB&F. The movement inside this watch consists of 581 individual parts that must be assembled by hand. So, translated: expect to get an order in immediately, or expect to wait. This timepiece will be not just hot but on fire. The color and materials combination are awesome. The newest watch will retail for $180,000.

A few notes: the watch measures 44mm in diameter like others in the collection but is now in steel. It boasts ergonomic pushers that were first seen on the Evo editions. The 69-piece complex case is water resistant to 30 meters and the subsidiary dials, which seem to be floating in space thanks to hidden studs that raise them up, are outlined in silver to match the steel case. They offer the time, day, month and date. The beautiful movement is visible via a sapphire case back.

The Perpetual by Stephen McDonnell for MB&F

MB&F originally presented its very first Legacy Machine (LM) Perpetual eight years ago in 2015 and it is one of the most sought-after watches on the market – in all of its evolutions (including the LM Perpetual Evo). The incredibly different manual-winding movement was developed by independent watchmaker Stephen McDonnell – who reinvented the  way the mechanism tracks time and date. The watch delivers the information in a more user-friendly manner, as well.

 

The perpetual calendar function, like all perpetual calendars, offers day, date, month and other calendar information. However, the MB&F LM Perpetual, as mentioned, does it differently.  In most perpetual calendars, no matter whether a month has 28, 29, 30, or 31 days in it, the date is determined by first starting with a 31-day date wheel and then the mechanics of the watch — via deeper or shallower wheel notches on the date disc — skip (or subtract) the correct number of days accordingly with each month to show the date. Essentially, to delete the extra, unwanted days in some months, the perpetual calendar must quickly scrolls through the teeth to arrive at the first — often resulting in jammed gears or skipped dates.

The MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual Calendar does the opposite of the traditional date counting and offers a revolutionary way of counting the number of days in a month. Instead of starting with 31 days and subtracting days each month, the default month for this watch is 28 days, and extra teeth in the wheel are added for the months with more than 28 days. This means that there is no need for the mechanics to skip through or fast-forward dates. Instead, extra days are added when needed via a patent-pending mechanical processor.  This eliminates the typical “grand Levier” system for driving the dates in perpetual calendars, and the mechanical  processor does the work.   This replacement makes it possible for the wearer to change time or date at will without worrying about breakage (traditional grand lever calendars cannot be changed or reset  between certain hours without resulting in damage).

Northern Ireland watchmaker Stephen  McDonnell spent years in the development of this movement. The architecture alone is something to drool at thanks the three-dimensional glory, skeletonized subdials and more. The new version brings it all.