For all the troubles 2020 presented for many watch brands, a few of them, like Swiss independent MB&F, nevertheless had a landmark year in terms of releases. The fan-favorite maison unveiled an array of new projects and collections, among them new yellow gold and sports-focused Legacy Machine Perpetuals, collaborative watches and clocks with H. Moser & Cie. and Watches of Switzerland, respectively, and two animal-inspired catalog updates, the HM3 Frog X and HM10 ?Bulldog,? MB&F and its well-regarded founder, Max Büsser, frequently found themselves at the top of watch collectors’ minds and in headlines during the turbulent year.

Büsser and his team, many would be heartened to know, show no signs of slowing down in 2021. Last week, revealed its latest ?Horological Machine,? the HM9 ?Sapphire Vision.? Longtime readers of WatchTime and fans of the brand may remember the original HM9, dubbed the ?Flow,? from 2018. This latest model, the HM9-SV, uses that same base design, differing ? quite obviously ? in its use of a primarily sapphire case in place of the previously mostly metal construction. The brand calls its previous HM9 movement ?the most beautiful movement MB&F had created to date.? With that being the case, ?What other logical step was there to take [then], if not to encase the engine in a transparent sapphire crystal shell"? And that is just what MB&F did.
The new model is being launched as a series of four limited editions...