Horological Machine No.6 Space Pirate

HM6 arrived in 2014 and immediately made every other avant-garde watch look conservative. Two aluminium domes carry the hours and minutes, rotating on a vertical axis so the numerals swim past rather than sweep. Two turbines at the top regulate winding, slowing the rotor when the wrist moves violently.

In the centre, under a sapphire cupola, a flying tourbillon runs exposed to the light. On the original Space Pirate the tourbillon could be shuttered by a retractable titanium screen, a detail borrowed from spacecraft rather than from horology.

Every one of the ten sapphire elements on this case is machined from a single block, ground and polished over weeks. The failure rate in production is the reason MB&F builds so few, and the reason each one carries the number it does.

In red gold with the blue caseband, the machine reads warmer than the titanium executions and considerably rarer. This is the configuration collectors chase when they already own a conventional grail and want something that stops conversation.

MB&F values have compounded quietly. Horological Machines from the HM6 generation are no longer speculative purchases; they are the pieces that anchor modern independent collections.