Short: MB&F LM101BASELWORLD 2016 Preview: Legacy Machine 101 of MB&F

For a classically sized 40mm wristwatch, Legacy Machine 101 (LM101) covers a lot of ground. Or to be more precise, LM101 covers a lot of time: over 100 years between inspiration and realisation.

Legacy Machine 101 embodies and accentuates the very essence of what is essential in a wristwatch: the balance wheel, which is responsible for regulating precision; how much power remains in the mainspring, which indicates when it needs to be next wound; and of course, the time.

LM101 has one more very special feature, one that cannot be seen: it houses the very first movement developed entirely in-house by MB&F.

Visually, LM101 is dominated by the monumental suspended balance wheel, its sedate oscillations drawing the eye ever closer. Two pristine-white subdials hover just above the fine sunray-engraved movement top plate: At the top right, highly legible hours and minutes are displayed by beautiful blued-gold hands contrasting against the immaculate white, while the 45-hour power reserve indicator is displayed in a smaller, but similar subdial below.

In an apparent feat of magic, the sapphire crystal protecting the dial appears to be invisible; creating the illusion that you can reach out and touch the prodigious balance wheel hanging mesmerisingly from elegant twin arches. The arches are milled from a solid block of metal and require more than five hours of hand polishing to achieve their mirror-like lustre.

Turning over Legacy Machine 101, the display back crystal – domed to reduce the thickness of the caseband and, visually, the height of the watch – reveals the exquisitely hand-finished movement. Sensually curved plates and bridges pay homage to the style found in high quality historic pocket watches and testify to the respect accorded to historical legitimacy.

With its undulating Geneva waves, hand polished bevels, gold chatons and countersunk blued screws, the beauty of LM101’s movement doesn't just stay faithful to a bygone era. It also heralds the dawn of a new epoch as it is the first MB&F calibre to be entirely conceived and designed in-house.

While award-winning independent watchmaker Kari Voutilainen took responsibility for the movement's fine finishing specifications and fidelity to the horological past, its architecture and construction are 100% pure MB&F.

First launched in 18k red or white gold, and then in two limited ‘Frost’ editions with frosted finishing, Legacy Machine 101 is now also available in a limited edition of 33 pieces in platinum 950 – recognisable thanks to its distinctive blue face.

Legacy Machine 101 in detail

Engine: While the movement of Legacy Machine 101 is superficially similar to that of Legacy Machine No.1, closer examination reveals that it is an entirely new calibre. It is not merely a scaled down version of LM1's movement, but an entirely new calibre conceived and developed in-house by MB&F.

The balance wheel and spring are at the very heart of any mechanical watch movement and their isochronal (equal intervals of time) oscillations regulate the movement's precision. Büsser has long been fascinated by the large slowly oscillating – 2.5 Hz/18,000 vph compared with the much faster 4 Hz/ 28,800 vph more common today – balance wheels of antique pocket watches. So it was no surprise that this was his starting point.

What was surprising though is just how radically he re-interpreted tradition by relocating the balance wheel from its more usual position hidden at the back of the movement to majestically floating not just the above movement but high above the dial.

While the location of LM101's oscillator may be considered avant-garde, ‘tradition’ is upheld by the large 14mm diameter balance wheel, featuring regulating screws specifically developed for MB&F, balance spring with Breguet overcoil and mobile stud holder.

And if you thought that the balance wheel looks impressive in Legacy Machine N°1, it looks even larger in the smaller diameter setting of LM101.

Dial and Indications: While the animated suspended balance visually dominates LM101, the immaculate white dials for the time (hours and minutes) and power reserve indications are both aesthetically appealing and highly legible thanks to the high contrasting blue hands.

Complementing the three-dimensionality of the balance floating in space, the white dials with their bright blued-gold hands float just above the top of the movement. The dials are gently domed with a translucent, high-gloss lustre created using a laque tendue process in which multiple layers of lacquer are applied and heated, causing them to stretch over the surface of the dials.

To ensure aesthetic purity of the dials, a sophisticated fixation underneath removes the necessity of visually obtrusive attachment screws. A fine golden perimeter circumscribing each dial elegantly reinforces their timeless classicism.

Fine Finishing and Historical Legitimacy: While the movement was developed entirely in-house, acclaimed master watchmaker Kari Voutilainen assumed responsibility for ensuring the movement's historical accuracy of the bridge design and fine finishing.

A finely engraved sun-ray pattern on top of the movement plate (dial side) subtly catches the eye at certain angles without distracting attention from the white dials of the time and power reserve indications and suspended floating balance. But it is in the style and finish of the bridges and plates visible through the display on the back of the movement where Kari Voutilainen has excelled in providing exquisite historical fidelity in both the shape of elegantly curved bridges and the traditionally wide space between the bridges and between the perimeter of the bridges and the case.

On the back of the movement, over-sized ruby jewels set in highly-polished countersunk gold chatons provide striking visual counterpoints to the Geneva waves traversing the sensually curved bridges. While providing historical links with the large jewels seen in high-grade antique pocket watch movements, the ruby bearings have a practical application in reducing wear/increasing longevity by accommodating large diameter pinions and holding more lubricating oil.

Inspiration and Realisation: MB&F's Legacy Machines were conceived when Maximilian Büsser started fantasising: "What would have happened if I had been born in 1867 instead of 1967? In the early 1900s the first wristwatches appear and I would want to create three-dimensional machines for the wrist. There are no Grendizers, Star Wars or fighter jets for my inspiration but I do have pocket watches, the Eiffel Tower and Jules Verne. So what might my early 20th century machines look like? They had to be round (tradition) and three-dimensional (MB&F Machine): Legacy Machines are the answer."

Maximilian Büsser has had a long affinity with pocket watches of the 18th and 19th centuries. Virtually all horological complications we see today were not only imagined in that period, they were developed using just paper and pen (no sophisticated computer programs), components were produced to extremely high precision using – by today’s standards – fairly primitive machines (no electricity) and finely finished, assembled and regulated to an incredibly high quality that we still strive to match today. Their generous size compared with modern wristwatches allowed for uncluttered movement architectures with beautifully shaped bridges and plates.

While MB&F’s futuristic Horological Machines have a firm foundation in the very best of traditional horology, Büsser wanted to pay homage to that rich tradition by imagining the type of timepiece he might create if he had been born a 100 years earlier. With its large, sedately oscillating balance, domed dials, historical bridge design and classical fine-finishing, Legacy Machines are the very contemporary, yet traditionally elegant fruition of that dream.

Legacy Machine N°1 (LM1) was the first piece in the Legacy collection; other pieces are Legacy Machine N°2 and Legacy Machine Perpetual. LM101 takes the traditional theme even further in offering a more classically sized 40mm case compared to 44mm for the other Legacy Machines.