MB&F: the First Fifteen Years, en Catalogue Raisonné

Text. Britta Rossander

An email arrived to Eqotime’s Britta Rossander the other day, it said: ”Dear Britta! OK, it’s just a book… but actually, we think it’s a pretty big deal.” MB&F: the First Fifteen Years, en Catalogue Raisonné is written by Suzanne Wong and William Massena. So typical of MB&F. They have had their entire history written down and also photographed and published ALL the watches and “movement art objects” they have manufactured so there should be no discussion about how many, is it MB&F or…?

MB&F: the First Fifteen Years, en Catalogue Raisonné has been produced both because they are proud of what they have achieved but also to put an end to speculations and what is genuine or not.

– Our Catalog Raisonné is an exercise in total transparency. We have documented every reference we have manufactured from 2005 to 2020, including prototypes and models we have never previously communicated. We describe in the book ref no, technical spec, year of manufacture and the exact number of each of the 160 references illustrated with 400 images. It became 312 pages with our 18 calibres, Horological and Legacy Machines, together with parts of our Co-Creations produced by our partners. A 30 page long intro summarises in plain text how it all began, tells Arnaud Légeret who handles the external communication.

– The idea for the project came when a customer who had bought an LM2 in gold asked by email how many examples the model had been manufactured in, says Maximilian Büsser, founder of MB&F. I checked and told him that of his watch a total of 31 examples had been made. He was surprised and replied that that probably wasn't correct. I told him that the number was right and he became quite happy.

– During our first 15 years we only manufactured about 3,000 watches spread across 18 calibres and countless variants. If you count it through you quickly realise how few pieces of each model there are out there. In parallel with the customer's question our friend William Massena came up with the idea of making a Catalog Raisonné.

Transparency

Alexandre Ghotbi, head of Watches for Continental Europe and the Middle East at Phillips in association with Bacs & Russo says that:

– In MB&F's philosophy total transparency is included and talking about who participates in their projects, from watchmakers and constructors to marketing and PR people. Making a Catalogue Raisonné is fairly common in the art world but it hasn't been done before in the watch industry. Some brands have published information about selected models or collections but it's rare that that information is complete. MB&F publishes everything. All the way down to the prototypes. Which is in line with Max's philosophy of wanting to break the secrecy in the industry that has existed for 200 years and that still prevails. Readers can see all of MB&F's work. It's a well-known fact that the brand doesn't accept commissions for custom-made watches. But during 2009 and 2010 – when times were hard – several unique pieces were manufactured that were sold without press releases or other info. In the name of transparency readers get knowledge of these as well.

Catalogue Raisonné is published by Editions de La Martinière and distributed by Abrams, in a first edition of 2 000 copies. 1 500 of these are reserved for MB&F and their partners. This is delivered in a custom-made box in the same material used for the boxes for their watches. The first deliveries are planned for summer 2022. The remaining 500 copies will be sold within the publisher's network from October 2022. Pre-orders can be made at the MB&F M.A.D.Gallery eShop.