MB&F SP One Introduces New Special Project Collection

At a baseline level MB&F produce some pretty extraordinary watches – that’s why they had to launch what is effectively a second brand in M.A.D to create more accessible watches for regular collectors to actually buy. Imagine what it takes then for MB&F to sit back, look at a watch they are designing and think, ‘now this is a special project’. With the launch of the Special Project collection, known as SP, they have a third family of watches alongside the established LM and HM lines. The first watch being launched in this line is naturally the SP One.

In essence, the SP collection is going to be reserved for watch designs that MB&F think are really cool but that don’t have a natural place as either an LM or HM. Previously whenever a design like that would come up, they had no choice but to put it in a drawer and forget about it. That’s actually how the SP One started life, as a project known as Three Circles that was eventually shelved because there was no outlet for it. With the new SP collection though, it finally has a home in which it can be brought to full realisation.

It’s a super slim (by MB&F standards) watch with a 38mm diameter and 12mm thickness. That’s a huge difference compared to the Avante Garde watches of the HM line and even the LM range with an average size of above 40mm. There are two versions available, one in platinum and the other in rose gold, both offering a high level of luxury but with suitably individual styles. It’s a very smooth, round design that MB&F are calling a pebble case.

While the case is nice, the focal point is the display, which is fully skeletonised to create a mystery style design. Mystery watches are those that look like they should be impossible to make – the most famous examples being those from Cartier such as the Masse Mystérieuse. The SP One is not quite as extreme as that, as you can still see where the three bridges attach to the case. However, from the front it does look as though the three core elements are floating, those being the power barrel, oversize balance wheel and timekeeping dial. Those are also the three circles of the Three Circles.

The movement, which in classic MB&F fashion is just called the SP One movement, has a 72-hour power reserve with manual winding. The key feature though is the exposed architecture, which looks great with its delicate hand finishing, which includes polished bevels and hand engraving. If you rotated the display 180 degrees it would look like a kind of time pyramid, although Arnold & Son beat MB&F to that concept.

For pricing, the rose gold edition is CHF 58,000 (approx. £52,100) and the platinum is CHF 65,000 (approx. £58,400), excluding tax. While it’s the inaugural watch in the Special Projects, it actually feels like a fusion of the HM and LM philosophies. The crazy watchmaking of the Horological Machines in a restrained case like the Legacy Machines just at a more svelte size.

More details at MB&F.

​Oracle Time 

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