MB&F Celebrates 20 Years With Two Very Special Limited-Editions
In an industry where legacies are often measured by centuries, MB&F — the puckish microbrand launched by watchmaking wunderkind Max Büsser (MB&F stands for Max Büsser and Friends) — may still seem like a new kid on the horological block. This year, however, Büsser, his friends, and a legion of the world’s most enthusiastic watch collectors will celebrate 20 years of art, experimentation, and going places no other brand has gone before. In this spirit, the first releases of MB&F’s 20th anniversary celebration are named for an important but often-overlooked detail in watch design: the lugs.
The LM Perpetual Longhorn and LM Sequential Flyback Longhorn, limited to 20 pieces each, feature stainless steel cases, rhodium-plated base plates, glossy black lacquer dials, blued hands, and a set of stretched lugs, aka horns, which give them their name (sorry to disappoint any fans of the Texas Longhorns college football team.) For some, a set of lugs is merely how a strap affixes to a watch case. Ask any serious watch nerd, however, and they’ll happily explain that lugs have more than their share of influence over how a watch looks and feels, with longer lugs complementing broader wrists and vice-versa.
MB&F first started playing around with a longer-lug design in 2009 during the development of their first Legacy Machine (the brand’s creations are dubbed “machines,” not watches.) The designers liked the look of the longer horns, but couldn’t decide whether to place the spring bars close to the case or at the tips. Depending on the wrist size of the wearer, either choice could lead to a bad fit, so they scrapped the idea and kept the original short lugs. The new LM Perpetual Longhorn and LM Sequential Flyback Longhorn revive this idea with an elegant compromise: instead of a single pair of springbar holes, they feature two sets so the wearer can choose the fit that best suits their wrist. This idea was first tested in 2021 with a prototype that was ultimately auctioned to benefit Save the Rhino International (rhinos = horns, get it?) Thanks to the positive feedback Büsser received on the prototype, MB&F is bringing back these long yet versatile lugs as part of the brand’s 20th-anniversary celebration.
If the idea of a choose-your-own lug adventure doesn’t get you fired up, there’s a lot more to appreciate in these two limited editions. Created in collaboration with independent watchmaker Stephen McDonnell, a former theology major whose first-ever full movement design, the MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual, won the Calendar Watch Prize at the 2016 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG), they are as mechanically intriguing as they are beautiful to look at — the intersection where MB&F does its best work.
Without getting too deep into the weeds, the LM Perpetual Longhorn features a 581-component movement that eliminates the drawbacks of conventional perpetual calendars — namely skipping dates and jamming gears — with a “mechanical processor” that deactivates the pushers when the calendar changes. The second limited edition, the LM Sequential Flyback Longhorn, is a descendent of the LM Sequential, another award-winning McDonnell creation. In addition to a “Twinverter” binary switch, an innovation that allows for independent timing, split-second, cumulative, and lap-timer modes, this one also boasts a flyback function. No big deal, right?
Fortunately, you don’t have to understand how all of this comes together to appreciate the scale of the achievement. You also don’t need to know how a perpetual calendar works to appreciate the look of these pieces, which — like MB&F’s best creations — are as much kinetic sculptures as tools for measuring time.
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