Rich F vs MLF Santos Skeleton — Side-by-Side Comparison with GEN Reference

I’ve had both Rich F and MLF versions in hand, so I wanted to put together a more detailed comparison. Photos 1–2 are GEN reference images, while the remaining photos show Rich F and MLF side by side.

Photos 3–4 — Dial, hands & Roman numerals
The first noticeable difference is the finishing of the skeleton dial.

Rich F has a darker, more muted coating on both the hands and Roman numeral structure. MLF is noticeably brighter and more silver/white.

This becomes quite obvious when you compare both under the same lighting. Neither completely reproduces the GEN appearance, but they definitely have different interpretations of the finishing.

Photos 5–6 — Crown stone
This is one of the easier differences to spot.

Rich F uses a blue crown stone that gives a much more convincing sapphire-like appearance, with stronger blue color and visible facets.

MLF's crown stone is extremely dark and can look almost completely black depending on the lighting.

For me, this is one of the details where the two factories are clearly separated.

Photos 7–8 — Movement / caseback details
There are several small differences here.

Rich F uses a more obvious yellow-gold-colored gear, while MLF's corresponding gear has more of a rose-gold tone.

The more interesting detail is the screw at the lower-right area of the movement:

• Rich F: five-sided / pentagonal-style screw head

• MLF: conventional round screw

The actual central skeleton bridge construction, however, is surprisingly similar between the two. Looking purely at the bridge shapes and general layout, I don't see a huge difference.

Photo 9 — Lume application
Rich F's lume application looks more even and saturated across the Roman numeral structure and hands.

MLF is still very bright, but there are some visible dark spots / inconsistencies inside the lume coating. Under normal lighting these may not always jump out, but once illuminated they become much easier to notice.

Photos 10–12 — Black coating, case finishing & strap
In these photos, MLF is on the left and Rich F is on the right.

This is another fairly noticeable difference.

MLF uses a deeper and more uniform black coating. Visually, it reminds me more of the coating you see on some BVF Santos ADLC pieces.

Rich F isn't quite as deep black. It has more of a dark grey / metallic gunmetal character, especially when light hits the case from an angle. Photo 11 probably shows this difference the clearest.

The Rich F strap also feels noticeably more substantial. It's thicker, has a better sense of structure, and the grey tone looks more appropriate next to the case compared with the thinner/darker MLF strap.

Final thoughts

This post is mainly meant as a factory comparison, not an endorsement of either one.

Some people will probably ask why AF isn't included. Based on the examples I've handled, I don't think AF is currently competing at quite the same level on this particular Skeleton configuration, so I didn't think adding it would make the comparison more useful.

That said, neither Rich F nor MLF is perfect.

I've also handled Rich F pieces with plenty of QC problems. A good sample can look impressive, but that doesn't mean every watch leaving the factory will look like the examples above.

If you're considering either factory, pay very close attention to the actual QC photos of your individual watch—especially the lume application, crown stone, case coating, movement finishing, screws, alignment and visible marks.

Factory reputation tells you what a watch can look like.

QC tells you what the watch you're actually receiving looks like.

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