Tag Archives: mb&f

MB&F HM9 Sapphire Vision in two fabulous colors stands testament to its exclusivity

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Blinging up the world of horology yet again, MB&F has taken the veil off its latest creations – the HM9 Sapphire Vision editions. Transporting us into a realm of unparalleled craftsmanship, these timepieces are adorned in two resplendent colors that redefine luxury.

HM9 Sapphire Vision boasts two enthralling models, each exclusively limited to five pieces. The first variant is adorned with an 18K white gold frame, its elegance accentuated by a PVD-coated blue engine. The second variant, ensconced in an 18K yellow gold frame, showcases a PVD-coated green engine that exudes an air of opulence.

Designer: MB&F

The Horological Machine N°9 aka HM9 masterpiece was kicked off in 2018. MB&F took another leap of faith with the inaugural series of HM9-SV editions in 2021. This collection was an ode to the intricate symphony of horological mastery by the watchmaker. These mesmerized with their encasement – a sapphire crystal that opens up every facet of the caliber for enthusiasts to admire.

The pièce de résistance of the HM9 Sapphire Vision editions is the presence of two fully independent balance wheels, coupled with a planetary differential on its engine. Embracing the idea that transparency is the ultimate form of luxury, MB&F has graced each of these timepieces with a total of five sapphire crystals, each treated with an anti-reflective coating.

The case components, the dial, and even the dial’s covering crystal have been meticulously crafted to provide an unobstructed view into the intricate heart of the watch. Functionally, the HM9 Sapphire Vision editions are endowed with a power reserve of 45 hours and water resistance of up to 30 meters, marrying aesthetics with practicality seamlessly.

The display showcases hours and minutes, elegantly presented on a vertical sapphire crystal dial, adorned with anti-reflective treatment. Super-LumiNova detailing on the numbers and indexes ensures legibility even in the darkest of hours. Completing the ensemble, the timepieces come adorned with hand-stitched brown or black alligator straps. The straps harmoniously unite with the white or yellow gold folding buckle, mirroring the case’s tones with finesse. As a testament to its exclusivity, each HM9-SV Edition carries a price tag of CHF 490,000 (approx. $550,000).

The post MB&F HM9 Sapphire Vision in two fabulous colors stands testament to its exclusivity first appeared on Yanko Design.

The alien-inspired Orb clock by MB&F blossoms open and stands on its four petal-shaped feet

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If you think about it, the art of telling the time has always had an element of performance to it. Whether it’s the sundial, which displayed the time through dancing shadows, or the cuckoo clock, which used mechanical chirping birds to indicate the time, the best clocks always have their signature flair… The MB&F x L’Epée 1839 Orb has its signature flair too – although, on a scale of 1-10 for visual drama, the Orb ranks a solid 20.

The Orb, created as a creative collaboration between MB&F and L’Epée, can be placed in closed or open orientations to display the time and the complex physical movement that powers the clock. The clock comes with an orb-shaped design comprising a circular face on the front and four petals (or elytra, given the Orb pulls inspiration from beetles) that give it its spherical eyeball-esque shape. When closed, the orb looks like, well, an orb that sits on a dock (to prevent it from rolling over). You can manually open out the Orb’s elytra, making it look like a beetle in flight, and even have it stand vertically, with the clock facing upwards. In this open orientation, the Orb also showcases its mesmerizing 1839 movement, designed and manufactured in-house by L’Epée.

Designed to be more like a sculptural jewel that tells time, the Orb’s uniquely interactive aesthetic allows you to really put it up on display as a centerpiece. The clock comes with a choice between a white and a black exterior and can be placed in a variety of orientations – as a circular orb, as a blossomed clock, or vertically, with the elytra serving as the clock’s legs. The clock’s state-of-the-art 1839 movement comes with a striking hour, which when enabled, allows it to chime every hour like a grandfather clock. The hour mechanism doesn’t just chime the passage of the hour, but rings multiple times to indicate the actual hour, like a church clock. This function can be repeated on demand or turned on and off. The movement also comes with an 8-day power reserve, and needs to be manually wound each week – which sounds like a bit of a drag if you ask me, but if you’re going to pay upward of $33,100 for an Orb of your own (yes, that’s how much it costs), you can surely afford to hire a butler who will wind the clock every week!

Designers: MB&F & L’Epée

Attention all watch enthusiasts, you cannot miss this rocket loupe holder collectible!

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MB&F, the artist concept laboratory dedicated to creating dynamic and radical watches that are completely ahead of their time, joined forces with Loupe System to launch Project LpX. Loupe System crafts some of the most advanced magnifying loupes in the world. After years of revealing conceptually similar and synchronized products, the two like minds decided to team up! The result; “An intergalactic magnification station enabling accurate viewing of watch movement details”, which manages to take you on a trip through the Milky Way!

Designer: MB&F and Loupe System

Click Here to Buy Now!

Project LpX (pronounced Loupe ex) is a sleek and super cool rocket ship that promises to store Loupe System’s high-quality magnification loupes without an inch of dust disturbing them. But one glance at it, and you’ll be reminded of all the sci-fi stories you read and movies you watched as a child! Major ET vibes. Created from anodized aluminum, the rocket ship stands tall at 33cm and weighs about 0.85 kg (with the loupes).

Turn off the lights, and the rocket base begins to glow! The mysterious green hues radiating from the base give the impression that the rocket is about to take off, kickstarting all the space travel dreams you had in the good old days! The glow is due to a tritium capsule booster tucked away at the base of the rocket. Tritium capsules were used in the flashlights that were issued by NASA to Apollo astronauts. The self-luminous booster is immune to all and any climatic conditions and possesses a half-life of 15 years!

Project LpX comprises of five modular parts, each of them boasting a satin stainless steel finish. The nose cone, the base of the rocket and the three co-existing body parts which accommodate the loupes, are attached together through a clicking bayonet assembly.

The rocket ship is accompanied by two magnifying loupes available in power options of 3x and 6x. The cherry on the icing would the inclusion of Loupe system’s universal clip, which enables you to attach the loupes onto your smartphone or tablet. You can use your devices with ease to click images and record videos of watch detailings.

Available in four myriad colors; black, blue, red and green, Project LpX is a reason for major rejoice amongst all watch enthusiasts. The most powerful loupes in the world packed in a beautiful and futuristic rocket ship? It’s hard to turn down such an impressive collectible!

Shaped like a jellyfish, the HM7 Aquapod is a beautiful, organic wristwatch

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After exploring the roads, skies and even outer-space, MB&F’s HM-series looks deep into our oceans for inspiration with the HM7 Aquapod. The Aquapod is a thing of sheer beauty, with the elegance of its bulbous body, reminiscent of a jellyfish. Exploring the third dimension to create a watch that’s memorable and mesmeric, the HM7 Aquapod has a domed sapphire crystal on the top as well as the bottom. A rotating bezel sits around the bulbous body much like the waist of the jellyfish, with not one, but two crowns embedded between the watch’s body and its floating bezel ring. The hours and minutes are displayed by two aluminium/titanium rings rotating on oversized central ceramic bearings, with a marking on the dome helping you read the time, while the at the center of the wristwatch is the very heart of the gentle beast… its 60-second flying tourbillon.

While the central tourbillion grabs one’s attention on the top, its exhibition base reveals the watch’s spectacular winding rotor, visually guarded by tentacles machined from solid titanium with a platinum sector underneath. The watch comes with a 72-hour power reserve and automatic winding with the ability to manually wind it too, using the secondary crown. While the HM7 isn’t a diving watch, its clear inspiration is aquatic in nature. The watch comes in four variants, red, blue, green, and black, with each variant made from either Grade 5 Titanium, 18k Rose Gold, or Platinum 950.

Designer: MB&F

The HM9 Flow is less of a watch and more of a time-telling kinetic sculpture

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Clearly taking inspiration from the streamlined aerodynamic body of an airplane, the HM9 Flow by MB&F is a sheer pleasure to look at, with its unconventional, curvilinear body and luxury steampunk aesthetic.

The movement within the HM9 Flow is developed in-house and is produced from 301 parts being manually-wound with 45 hours of power reserve. Three exhibition windows on the top give you a clear view of the enchanting movement of the twin balance wheels on each flank, accompanied by a planetary differential that averages their output, giving you an accurate reading on the dial that’s located on a vertical surface that faces you when you have your hands around the steering wheel, allowing you to casually glance at the time as you navigate your automobile.

The case is made entirely from titanium, with as many as five curved sapphire crystal windows (three on top, one on the side, and one on the back) giving you a view of the time and the bespoke movement that’s responsible for it. MB&F plans to produce only 33 of these remarkable timepieces, albeit with a hefty price tag of $182,000. These stellar jpegs, however, are for free.

Designer: MB&F

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This clock has hands… and legs!

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MB&F is known to push boundaries with their timepieces. Unlike most watch brands that’s all about following tradition and legacy, Maximilian Büsser and his friends (MB&F) dabble with timekeeping on a different level, oftentimes creating watches that are more sculptural or are performance pieces rather than the standard two hands and a dial.

Octopod is one of MB&F’s most dazzling (and borderline scary) timepieces. Exploring the aquatic theme (an MB&F favorite), the Octopod is mesmeric (and borderline scary, I repeat) with its transparent orb head and eight movable legs. The timepiece almost floats inside the transparent orb, and was engineered to perfection by L’Epée 1839, who have been in the watchmaking business for over 175 years. The watch’s movement is made from 159 individual components, including 19 jewels, with an eight-day power reserve. The true enchantment however lies in the Octopus head that comes with a 360° gimbal action allowing the watch/clock face to face in any direction. The timepiece itself is mounted on a special glass base-plate with anti-reflective coatings on both sides, making it absolutely unnoticeable so it looks like the timepiece is truly floating in air.

Available as a limited edition, the Octopod comes in three colors, Black PVD, Blue PVD, and Palladium, and an absolutely hefty price tag… which is the price you pay for something this remarkably beautiful and unique. Not to mention again, borderline scary.

Designers: MB&F & L’Epée 1839

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MB&F Sherman Desk Clock: RoboClock

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The robot-shaped MB&F Sherman clock is adorable and bound to make you smile. Apparently it was inspired by the M4 Sherman tank. See those working Caterpillar tracks?

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The clock face is simple with a traditional two-hand face – nothing overly complicated here. It’s manually wound, and the movement can run for over a week before requiring a rewind. Both arms are fully articulated, so you can position them any way you want.

It comes in three versions: gold-plated, palladium-plated, and a diamond-set gold-plated model. I love how all of the clock works are visible and part of the robot’s design.

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By now you have guessed that this fancy desk toy will not be cheap. Pricing for the MB&F Sherman clock starts above $13,000(USD). I guess rich kids will love it, while I will be sad.

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[via Cool Things]

Killing Time Takes on a New Meaning with the Arachnophobia Timepiece

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If you can’t stand spiders, you might want to pass on this creepy yet amazing spider-inspired timepiece called the Arachnophobia. It was created by luxury watchmaker MB&F, because why not?

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It basically looks like a giant mechanical spider that runs on the power of your soul. They cost $16,000 – $18,000(USD) each, so most of us will never know the terror of this creepy timepiece on our desk.

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Actually the price is the first thing that induces terror, then when you get it, you are scared all over again. Now I really want to kill some time, by stepping on this thing.

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Try not to wake up groggy one night and kill this thing, ruining your investment.

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[via LuxuryLaunches via Geekologie]

MB&F’s USS Enterprise-Inspired Music Box Plays Led Zep and the Imperial March

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Specialized in the manufacture of gorgeous and uber-expensive watches (some of them costing north of $100K), Swiss company MB&F demonstrates the world how a sci-fi music box should look and sound like.

In April 2013, I wrote a piece about MB&F’s MusicMachine, a mesmerizing piece of mechanical art that combined sci-fi themes with progressive rock. The following musical box is the successor of that, and while different in design, it follows a similar trend as far as the music is concerned.

Even the watches made by Maximilian Büsser & Friends draw some inspiration from sci-fi flicks, so the fact that the MusicMachine 2 looks like a blatant copy of Star Trek’s USS Enterprise shouldn’t surprise anyone.

The music box tackles two different musical genres: sci-fi themes and classic rock. In the first category there’s Star Wars’ Imperial March, as well as the main theme, along with the theme song of Star Trek. It’s as if the creators of this music box wanted to bring Star Trek and Star Wars fans together, even though the animosity between them is well-known across the globe. Classic rock fans should also be delighted by the selection, as there’s Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, The Rolling Stones’ Angie and Clash’s Should I Stay or Should I Go?.

Some consider that MB&F wanted just to cash in by taking advantage of the popularity of Star Trek and Star Wars, and putting the two themes together, but I disagree. If there hadn’t been a similarly designed predecessor, and if the company’s sci-fi inspired watches hadn’t existed, that thought would’ve probably crossed my mind, but in this context, I believe that Maximilian Büsser simply wanted to make known some of its passions.

As seen in the above pictures, MusicMachine 2 comes in two colors: black (limited to 66 pieces) and white (limited to 33 pieces). These cost $21,500 (quite a hefty sum for a music box, eh?), and in addition to them there’s also a gun metal version created as a limited edition of 5 made for Hodinkee. Obviously, that’ll come at a premium price, but considering that the music boxes were made by hand in their entirety, the price might be justified for some.

Additional details on how this beautiful piece of art came to be are available on ABlogtoWatch, along with plenty of technical specs, just in case anyone is interested in such details.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about MB&F’s MusicMachine that mixes sci-fi themes with prog rock, and the music box with wheels.

MB&F Legacy Machine 101 Features First In-house Movement

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As a watch enthusiast, I understand the pain and pride behind developing an in-house movement. So this time around when MB&F announced their Legacy Machine 101, my interest piqued as it houses the very first movement developed entirely in-house by MB&F. Dominating the dial is a monumental suspended balance wheel, which is another point of interest in terms of design and functionality.

Classically sized as a 40mm wristwatch, the Legacy Machine 101 (LM101) features two pristine-white subdials and is placed above the sunray-engraved movement top plate: the top right showcases the highly legible hours and minutes that are indicated via blued-gold hands and the 45-hour power reserve indicator is displayed in a smaller, but similar subdial below.

What I really like about the design is that the sapphire crystal protecting the dial appears to be invisible; thus creating an illusion that you can touch the balance wheel. The display back crystal has been domed to reduce the thickness of the caseband and also showcases the hand-finished movement.

Inspired by the pocket watches from the eras gone by, the award-winning independent watchmaker Kari Voutilainen is the man behind the movement’s fines finishing. Legacy Machine 101 is available in an 18k red gold or 18k white gold case.

Legacy Machine 101 – Technical Specifications

  • Engine: Three-dimensional horological movement developed in-house by MB&F
  • Aesthetical design and finish specifications: Kari Voutilainen
  • Manual winding with single mainspring barrel
  • Power reserve: 45 hours
  • Number of components: 229 components
  • Number of jewels: 23
  • Functions: Hours, minutes and power reserve indicator. Large suspended balance wheel over dial
  • Strap & Buckle: Black or brown hand-stitched alligator strap with gold tang buckle to match case.

Designer: MB&F

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(MB&F Legacy Machine 101 Features First In-house Movement was originally posted on Yanko Design)

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