Dear Friends,

We ended last year with a splash! You may recall, in my previous newsletter I asked you to cross your fingers for us at the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève - better known as the GPHG, the watchmaking world's most famous and prestigious awards. Two of our timepieces had been shortlisted... Well, we opened the award ceremony by winning the Challenge category, with our M.A.D.1 RED... and, about two hours later, we closed the same ceremony with the ultimate prize, the prestigious Aiguille d'Or for our LM Sequential EVO, our first-ever chronograph created with the one-and-only Stephen McDonnell. I can't express how proud we all were, and how thankful we are to the GPHG Academy and Jury!

Following that amazing win for one of our EVO pieces - designed to cope with our collectors' active lifestyles - we released a number of more classic Legacy Machines these past months.
Many years ago, I was sitting at a collectors' dinner and noticed an elegant watch on my neighbour's wrist. Looking closer, I realised it was a piece by the living legend Philippe Dufour... and when I flipped it over to admire the movement, I was shocked: two escapements! This was one of Dufour's very rare 'Duality' timepieces. I made a mental note to revisit this amazing construction one day...
Legacy Machine No.2 is deceptively simple: it displays only hours and minutes. But look closer, on either side of its pure white subdial, and you’ll see two fully independent escapements - just like that Duality I had admired many years ago. My take on the dual regulator was to bring both escapements to the forefront of the watch, each with its own flying balance wheel. If you have a close look at the video below, you'll notice that each balance is beating independently. The secret? A sophisticated central planetary differential averages out the rates of both regulating systems, delivering a more constant result to the time display above.
One of the reasons I love the LM2 is because it is widely misunderstood; it is a Machine for true watch lovers, geeks like me who appreciate its horological prowess. Its mechanical complexity commands a price in the same range as our perpetual calendars and chronographs, generally perceived as more complicated. The unsurprising consequence of all this is that – excepting the LM Thunderdome, our hyper-complex triple-axis tourbillon – the LM2 series is the rarest of our Legacy Machines.
To mark the 10th anniversary of LM2, in February we presented a very limited edition of just 18 pieces in palladium. Palladium is not only one of the most precious metals, it is also incredibly challenging to work with; on the rare occasions we decide to craft a palladium edition, my Head of Production and partner at MB&F Serge Kriknoff tells me never again!

We've traditionally paired our Palladium editions with subtle aquamarine dials, and the LM2 Palladium is no exception. Under the sunray-finished dial plate, you’ll find the amazing LM2 calibre conceived and designed by our Friends Jean-François Mojon and Kari Voutilainen.
Cases in stainless steel and salmon-coloured dials: two features that have been around for ages, consistently but sparingly, often for special editions… and that have gained something of a cult following. At MB&F, over the last 18 years, we have rarely crafted cases in stainless steel, and even more rarely created salmon dials – actually just once! Combine those two features, and you get an absolute first for MB&F: the new LM Perpetual Stainless Steel with salmon dial plate, which we announced in March.
Unlike the LM2 Palladium edition which was just 18 pieces - and is entirely sold out - this new Perpetual's steel & salmon combination is not limited... although it will be limited by our production capacity, imposed by the complexity of the LM Perpetual calibre and its 581 components.
First presented in 2015, the Legacy Machine Perpetual has become one of our absolute superstars. Among other recognitions, it took the Best Calendar Watch prize at the GPHG, recognising here again the awesome work of Stephen McDonnell – who literally reinvented the perpetual calendar mechanism, delivering a more user-friendly, more reliable (and incredibly beautiful!) machine. Hear it from the man himself in the video below.
Like the most recent iterations of the classic LM Perpetual, this Stainless Steel version inherits the ergonomic corrector pushers first seen on the Perpetual EVO editions. The first pieces of the LM Perpetual Stainless Steel started shipping to our network of retail partners in March, and you can also enquire at our eShop.
I've known my good friend Laurent Picciotto, founder of the legendary Chronopassion boutique in Paris, for over 30 years – and he played a key role at the very beginning of MB&F. When I started my dream company in 2005, I needed the support of a few retailers who would accept to place orders for our very first Horological Machine No.1, two years in advance – and, more challenging, to pay 30% of those orders up front! Laurent – a true pioneer and champion of independent watchmaking – was one of just six retail partners who took this leap of faith... and made my dream possible.
Fast-forward 17 years later, to 2022, and Laurent opens one of our very first MB&F LABs in the world, on rue Saint-Honoré. To mark this exceptional friendship, we‘ve created a special edition together, available exclusively at his boutique: the LMX ‘Paris Edition’, with a purple sunray dial plate, in an 18k white gold case, limited to just 15 pieces. In Laurent's words: “If I were to give a name to the LMX Paris Edition, I would undoubtedly call it the ‘LMX Deep Purple’ in reference to the famous 1968 rock group – this piece is definitely rock ’n’ roll!”.
The original LMX celebrated 10 years of Legacy Machines; it was essentially a supercharged version of the first Legacy Machine, an LM1 on steroids. The LMX features the same signature flying balance wheel, along with two dials of stretched white lacquer, each with its own fully independent time display – but unlike the first Legacy Machines, both dials are tilted at an angle, requiring the transfer of energy from horizontal to vertical planes thanks to conical gears.
In another nod to the world-first vertical power reserve indicator of LM1, LMX features a three-dimensional display that showcases the engine’s impressive seven days of power reserve – with the option to select between two modes. Two markers are positioned on opposite sides of a hemisphere; one framed by an arched scale numbered 1 to 7, another with a scale showing the 7 days of the week.
Interested? You'll need to contact Laurent and his team at the MB&F LAB in Paris (below) to try to get your hands on one of those 15 "Deep Purple" pieces.

I almost forgot to mention: between the GPHG wins, Legacy Machine launches, openings of MB&F LABs and other events, we also moved our workshops and offices to a new location in Carouge, a few minutes from the centre of Geneva: our new HQ is a 120-year old, renovated mansion which we now call the M.A.D.House!

Our team is hard at work in the M.A.D.House, assembling the classic Legacy Machines we released these past months... but we're also putting final touches on a different type of mechanical creature: you can expect announcements of new Horological Machines first in June, and then again in the autumn... so stay tuned :)
Take good care of yourself,
Maximilian Büsser
Owner & Creative Director