Limited Edition MB&F Yellow Gold LM Perpetual Calendar Watch Revealed

Maximilian Büsser and his friends are back at it, this time with 25 limited editions of the famous Legacy Machine Perpetual Calendar watch in 18K yellow gold with a deep blue dial plate to match.

Since its original launch in 2015, the LM Perpetual has been handcrafted and released in various editions featuring cases made of platinum, titanium, red gold, white gold. This is the first time however that an 18K yellow gold version has been created and one can’t help but feel the yellow-golden tones enhance its futuristic steampunk characteristics.

Originally created as a collaboration between MB&F and Northern Irish watchmaker Stephen McDonnell, the Legacy Machine Perpetual watch is a fascinating piece that completely reinvents the perpetual calendar watch model.

Generally speaking, the perpetual calendar model has been one of the greatest traditional complications, whose function it is to calculate and display the days and months of the year. There are some small issues however, in that, perpetual calendar watches don’t always know how to handle leap years and are prone to damage if attempting to adjust them while the date is in the process of changing.

Focusing on these pain points, Stephen McDonnell and the team set about creating a revolutionary new system for calculating the number of days in each month.

As a general rule of thumb, traditional perpetual calendar mechanisms use a 31-day month as the default and more or less “delete” extra dates they don’t need for the months with fewer days. This is done by fast-forwarding through the “extra” dates during changeover e.g a  traditional perpetual calendar changing from February 28 to March 1 will quickly scroll through the 29^th, 30^th and 31^st to arrive at the 1^st.

In contrast, the LM Perpetual uses a “mechanical processor” instead of the conventional space-consuming grand levier (big lever) system architecture. This mechanical processor allows the LM Perpetual to utilise a default 28-day month and only adds extra days as required. This means that each month always has the exact number of days required and there is no fast-forwarding or skipping redundant days.

Additionally, while the leap year can only be set on traditional perpetual calendars by scrolling through up to 47 months, the LM Perpetual has a dedicated quickset pusher to adjust the year.

It only took three years and many sleepless nights later to figure out, but figure it out they did and thus the Legacy Machine Perpetual was created.

To date the LM Perpetual Editions have incuded:

• Platinum 950 with blue face (limited to 25 pieces)
• Grade 5 titanium with green face (limited to 50 pieces)
• 18k red gold with grey face (limited to 25 pieces)
• 18k white gold with purple face (limited to 25 pieces)
• 18k white gold with dark grey face
• 18k yellow gold with blue face (limited to 25 pieces)

Prices start from $167,000 per piece. For more information visit the website.