MB&F Horological Machine 1 Watch In Person

Max Busser has a good sense of humor. Although he runs a serious business selling world-class luxury watches, no timepiece he makes is without a humorous character. The first time I gazed my eyes upon the Horological Machine 1 (HM1) watch, I pondered the interesting style of the two overlapping circle. It was provocative and certainly different – with a curious way of telling the time. When I finally got my hands on the watch I realized something else. It seems that all of Max’s watches have one thing in common. They look a bit like a pair of eyes. The HM1 being a set of particularly googly eyes. And that there is part of the joke. This contrast between a world of high luxury and complications, and a simple humorous case shape.

The HM1 is still my favorite of the MB&F watches. Mainly for its character and dual nature as an item of whimsy, and an item of luxury. Even the rotor on the automatic movement represents that. Made of 22k rose gold, and shaped as a self described “battle axe.” The watch itself comes in a a few shades of gold and incorporates a wealth of high grade materials and complex construction. A particularly difficult touch are the two sapphire bridges that are actually fits incorporate parts of the watch that hold it together. Incredibly delicate and hard to manufacture. The movement has a 7 day power reserve via 4 mainspring barrels, as well as a tourbillon escapement.

The tourbillon is curiously placed in the exact center of the watch. All four main spring barrels feed it at the same time in parallel via a large differential gear. This creates the effect of averaging out the rates between the different mainsprings to allow for more consistent time keeping.

Time is easy to tell once you get the hand of it. Just like a regulator, you read the hours and minutes on separate dials. The watch also has a power reserve indicator, and small seconds as the tourbillon. The watch looks a lot better in person than it does in the marketing images – and it looks damn good in those. See above for two images I took with the lovely MB&F HM1 on my wrist. It is a fine timepiece so charmingly different that it is hard not to love it. Other people will also have to work hard not to notice it. There is also the innovative case the watch arrives in. A wooden box for the watch and accessories, and placed withing a custom-made messenger bag. All that for a price somewhere a little bit over $200,000.

By Ariel Adams

Tags: hm1, horological machine, max busser, mb&f, Tourbillon, watch

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 at 2:53 pm and is filed under Watches. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.