Had MB&F been in the wristwatch business when Vril, El Anacronópete, and Captain Nemo were the latest in science fiction fantasy, the 2011 Legacy Machine No.1 would have been the result.

There’s a contradiction inherent when imagining what a wristwatch built in the pocket watch era would have looked like, but Maximilian Büsser and his collaborative “Friends” probably get a kick of that irony.

Max doubled down in 2015 by recruiting Irish watchmaker, complications specialist, and WOSTEP veteran Stephen McDonnell, to create  Legacy Machine Perpetual, MB&F’s most complicated watch to date.

MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual

The LM aesthetic from 2011’s Kari Voutilainen collaboration endures, but the Perpetual gives pride of place to the headlining mechanism itself; it’s one and the same as the dial.

McDonnell’s focus was split between ease of use, durability, and packaging. Ease of use comes in the form of an independent corrector for each of the day, date, month, and leap year. Unlike most perpetual calendars, the LM Perpetual has a permanent freestanding button for advancing each display; no separate tool is required.

MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual

Furthermore, the displays are not interconnected by any setting mechanism, so they can be corrected independently. Many traditional perpetual calendars link dates and months, or months and leap years. This can be a headache if all the user desires is a quick correction to a single dial or display.

Other calendar systems, such as that used by IWC and Jaeger-LeCoultre, are unidirectional and fully coordinated. Advance an IWC perpetual calendar too far, and either it must sit stationary for an extended time or – in the worst-case scenario – be returned to the manufacturer for resetting.

The JLC version attempts to avoid this by moving the quick-setting system from the crown to a dimple pusher, but if you leave the watch for months or years potentially hundreds of stabs at that dimple become necessary.

No display on the Legacy Machine Perpetual requires more than 30 pushes to correct regardless of how long it sits.

Durability is a major strength of the Legacy Machine Perpetual. All manual jumpers are robustly constructed with levers and springs around the periphery of the dial. By permitting each calendar display to be corrected only as much as necessary, McDonnell removes the tendency of certain perpetual calendars to require dozens of potentially damaging corrections per display to achieve the correct indication.

Vacheron Constantin, for example, requires its month display to be advanced through as many as four years – 47 months – in order to return to the correct month and leap year phase.

On the LMP, this can be done with three depressions of the leap year display.

Moreover, the nocturnal “danger zone” of a conventional perpetual calendar is eliminated by MB&F’s blocker system. Any attempt to activate a manual calendar adjustment during the watch’s autonomous turn-over will be thwarted by a mechanical minder that prevents the owner’s self-sabotage attempt.

MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual

Packaging concerns might seem secondary on a 44mm watch that’s almost 18mm thick, but the LMP is deceptive in that regard. The center dial is dominated by a massive arching steel balance bridge, overcoil hairspring, and 14mm free-sprung balance wheel; the perpetual calendar’s compact mechanical computer vanishes under the nine o’clock flank of the grand oscillator.

Unlike most perpetual calendars, which are based on a 31-day month, a program wheel, and an arching “grand lever,” the LMP employs a tiny, mechanized mind based primarily on a stack of discs and an assumed 28-day standard month. This system vanishes at center below the balance and calendar displays. While the watch is not compact, its brain is.

Compact watchmaking permits the remainder of Max’s friends to spread the crowd-pleasing calendar displays, balance assembly, and primary dials to the outer edge of the sprawling watch face.

MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual

Longtime MB&F style collaborator Eric Giroud built on the Legacy Machine’s steampunk sensibility by spacing the displays like the control console of a steam locomotive or early submarine. Below the dominant balance bridge, the calendar and time read like the gauges of Enrique Gaspar’s Anacronópete or H.G. Wells’ better-known device from The Time Machine.

White lacquer subdials abound on MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual

White lacquer distinguishes each display and serves as a nod to 19^th-century porcelain and enamel dial pocket watches.

Officially, Kari Voutilainen isn’t MB&F’s headlining “Friend” for this Legacy Machine edition, but his influence hangs heavily over the result. The famous Finn was an advisor on the original LM’s bridge architecture, finishing standards, and finishing styles.

All of that endures on McDonnell’s construction. Execution of the dial-side levers, star wheels, jumper springs, and bridges is Voutilainen-level. It’s difficult to find a single component that looks unfinished or mass-produced.

MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual

Architecture is a strong feature of this dial, and no corner of the roughly cruciform-symmetrical dial feels either barren or crowded.

Even small details like screw slotting and polished locating pegs for bridges and springs are exemplary. Small structures such as the leap year scale feature impressively precise application of lacquer, brushed grain, and polished micro-bevels.

Steel jumper pawls for the calendar displays exhibit the kind of lush detail characteristic of the best keyless works componentry from pre-industrial 1940s-1960s haute horlogerie watchmaking. Interior angle beveling can be found in abundance – see the bridge for the leap year indicator – and the caseback still awaits.

MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual movement

This caseback is worth the wait. Here, Voutilainen’s LM conventions remain the dominant driver of the aesthetic. Bridges are unconventionally thick to permit colossal rolled and mirrored bevels. Loupes and light aren’t required to get the benefit of the artisans’ effort, because the scale and spectacle of the assembled parts is Hope Diamond-level obvious.

The crown wheel and both ratchet wheels feature spectacular sunray textures, and all three are fixed by giant screws of mirror quality. Golden chaton cups hold the drivetrain jewels in a fashion worth of the best Jules Verne-era pocket watches, and the inked script lettering on the bridges is masterfully engraved.

MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual movement

Mechanically, the caseback integrates an elaborate split escapement. While the balance wheel dominates the dial, the motive force rests below in the form of a lever escapement and jeweled roller table. The sheer size of the balance staff is notable at nearly 12mm in length; it’s one of the longest ever placed in a wristwatch.

MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual movement

While the escape wheel itself is handsome enough with highly polished faces, the anchor is a micromechanical work of art with well-defined facets and impeccably applied decoration.

But the stars are the golden train wheels. Each one features interior beveling and crisp converging angles. With two sides and five spokes each, these wheels contain 40 interior angles in each instance. Many “Geneva Seal” watches feature exactly “0.”

MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual

The MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual is very expensive, huge, and exclusive. Few will ever have the pleasure of its daily companionship. On the other hand, it’s far easier to attain than a Martian tripod, Captain Nemo’s Nautilus, or any time machine.

In its own way, the Legacy Machine Perpetual is a time machine, and its story continues to be written. Will you feature in the next chapter? Time will tell.

For more, please visit www.mbandf.com/en/machines/legacy-machines/lmperpetual

Quick Facts: MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual
Reference Code: 03.WL.B
Case: White gold; 44mm diameter; 17.7mm thick; 50.2mm lug-to-lug; 30-meters WR; push down crown
Clasp: White gold and titanium double-deployant with leaf spring
Dial: Open dial with balance bridge, power reserve indicator, perpetual calendar
Movement: Manual wind, 72-hour power reserve, twin barrels, free sprung balance, overcoil hairspring, 18,000VpH, perpetual calendar with 28-day base, “danger zone” blocker for calendar correctors, 41 jewels, 581 parts
Functions: hours, minutes, power reserve indicator, perpetual calendar with day, date, month, leap year
2024 Preowned Price: $180,000

* Tim Mosso is the media director and watch specialist at The 1916 Company. You can check out their very comprehensive YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/@the1916company

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