A perpetual calendar you can't break by being careless
By Marco Bellini, Zurich ยท
Most perpetual calendars come with a rule: don't touch the correctors near midnight, or you may damage the mechanism. Stephen McDonnell redesigned the calendar for MB&F around what they call a mechanical processor, a set of superimposed discs that works out the length of each month directly instead of relying on the traditional long lever and its feeler, and the result is a perpetual you can set without fear, which handles the short months correctly by design rather than by a sequence of jumps.
That is real engineering. I wish more brands spent their money on that kind of problem.
Then the balance, floating above the dial under its high domed crystal, the Legacy Machine signature. It's beautiful to watch, and it's the reason the case is 17.5 mm tall. 44 mm across, gold, hand-wound, 72 hours, 30 m.
Against it: the height. It sits high on the wrist and catches on everything. And 170,000 to 190,000 USD is far more than a Patek perpetual, which is thinner and more practical. The MB&F is more interesting to a watchmaker. That is not the same thing as being a better buy.
If I had that money and only one perpetual, I would have a hard time. Probably this one. My sleeves would suffer.