Dear Friends,

I’m back in Geneva this week because it’s a busy time in MB&F’s home town! On Thursday, our team will be attending the watchmaking world’s most prestigious award ceremony, the 'Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève' aka GPHG – and we’ll be crossing fingers for our LM FlyingT, shortlisted in the Ladies’ Complications category. This is also the week of a number of important watch auctions – including the amazing ‘Only Watch’ charity auction, which takes place every two years. The 2019 auction is organised by Christie’s this Saturday – and the fight against Duchenne muscular dystrophy needs all the help it can get! Read on for details.

If you’re already aware of the biennial ‘Only Watch’ auction, you know it’s the world’s highest-profile charity watch auction. The impressive 2019 collection features no less than 50 unique pieces, donated by 52 watch brands; the sale of the pieces goes to fund research against a terrible disease, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which causes the gradual loss of basic motor functions including the ability to walk. The disease affects children.

In July we announced our contribution to this 2019 edition: Tom & T-Rex, an amazing piece of traditional clock making, thanks to the unmatched expertise of our trusted partners at L’Epée 1839. The clock is loaded with metaphors: a small sculpture of a young boy, whom we’ve called Tom, represents the children living with the degenerative disease. Tom rides his formidable T-Rex friend, who carries him away into fantastical realms with the earth-shaking strides of the mightiest of dinosaurs; a symbol of the hope offered by the Only Watch auction to the children affected by the disease.

These symbolic elements are what strike at first, but they are substantiated by the highest-quality mechanical nature of the clock. Standing over 30cm tall and crafted from more than 200 components of palladium-plated brass, bronze and stainless steel, with a translucent dial in hand-blown Murano glass, Tom & T-Rex deliver the time with 8 days of power reserve. But more importantly, they deliver – along with the 49 other pieces of the auction – precious funds to medical research and hope to children.

If you’re looking for a one-of-a-kind timepiece, Only Watch offers you an incredible collection of Piece Uniques from the most famous watch brands in the world. All proceeds go to charity, and there are no reserve prices… I urge you to sign up for the auction! You’ll find all the details here, and the link to the official Christie’s page here.

As announced back in July, ‘Tom & T-Rex’, was in fact the first example of a new series of clocks called T-Rex. As the name implies, you get the same amazing clockwork by L’Epée 1839, but without Tom – and in three different colours distinguishing the Limited Editions from the Piece Unique’s light blue glass dial.

T-Rex is our eleventh co-creation with L’Epée, who take care as always of the engineering and manufacturing. To create the piece, I had the great pleasure of working with another Max, namely designer Maximilian Maertens – who modelled the clock’s legs from actual Tyrannosaurus Rex bones! Like the Piece Unique, it stands about 30cm tall and is crafted from more than 200 finely finished components of palladium-plated brass and bronze, stainless steel… and glass! But not just any glass: hand-blown artisanal glass from the island of Murano, near Venice. The Limited Editions come with deep blue, red or green dials, which display the time thanks to two slim arched hands.

Behind the dial and suspended in an open sphere between the dinosaur’s two legs, L’Epée’s in-house eight-day power reserve movement forms the pulsating heart of these new mechanical creatures.

T-Rex comes in three limited editions of 100 pieces each in deep blue, green or red.
Retail price is CHF 22’500 + VAT and you’ll find all the details on our website.

That’s it for now, I hope you like our “Jurassic Art” clocks! We love creating these clocks with our partners at L’Epée, but rest assured the pipeline is also filled with wristwatches, in both our Legacy Machine and Horological Machine collections – like the HM9 ‘Flow’ in red gold, launched just over a month ago.

Finally, if you’re looking for the best way to admire your timepiece collection, you need our latest collaboration piece: Project LpX, co-created with Loupe System, quite simply the best loupes you can find on the market today. Check the project out on our website – and go to our eShop if you’d like to secure one before they sell out.