DonCorson
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BaselWorld 2014 - Arnold & Son
BaselWorld 2014 - Arnold & Son
John Arnold (*1736 in Cornwall) was one of the famous watchmakers of the generation of Abraham-Louis Breguet. His timepieces where instrumental in solving the longitude problem for the British Navy and his "Nr. 36" was the first timepiece to be called a chronometer.
Today Arnold and Son is a Swiss brand in La Chaux-de-Fonds owned by the independent movement manufacturer La Jout-Perret. As such they have all the design and manufacturing competences needed in house and one of their trade marks is that each watch that they make has its own orginal movement. And, of course, they tie in to the history of Arnold & Son making watches with chronometric complications.
Let's take a look as some of the watches they are showing.
This is the Time Pyramid. This is a double barrel watch with a unique movement architecture, it being a pyramid shaped regulator like many historical British clocks. The balance wheel is alone at the top of the pyramid and the two barrels stable at the bottom. The two barrels enable an autonomy of 90 hours. Interestingly the watch has 2 power reserve indicatiors, one for each barrel. The barrels are in series, the first one winding the second when needed, so they do not necessarily have the same "state of charge". But when added they give the total autonomy.
HM Perpetual Moon has a 29mm moon disk which allows a 11.2mm diameter moon display. The display is accurate to a day every 122 years. A second moon display on the back with graduations allows accurately setting the moon display.
The TB88 is a double barrel jumping seconds watch with 100 hours of autonomy. The movement is inverted so that all the interesting features such as the many individual bridges in English style and the Breguet overcoil hairspring can be seen from the dial side.
The DBS Siderial time watch is a complication that we non-astronomers don't often need. The watch is perfectly symetrical on right showing mean solar time, the time system that we use daily, and on the left showing siderial time, time based on the position of the stars and no on the position of the sun. The difference is something less than 4 miniutes a day. It is impossible to derive that from the gear train of the mean solar time so an entire new oscillator and gear train is used timed correctly for siderial time. The two barrels are wound together, the the time setting is through separate stems to avoid changing the time by accident.
The DTE is a double tourbillon dual time zone watch introduced this year for the 250th anniversery of Arnold & Son. It includes two completely independent tourbillons, gear trains and time indications. Thus the time can be set at will for either and time zones that are not at full hours from GMT pose no problem.
The DSTB is a jumping seconds (dead beat) watch with the entire dead beat mechanism on the dial side where it can be admired at work at all times.
Here we see the TEC1, an automatic wind, tourbillon, column wheel chronograph.
A TE8 toubillon with a sapphire bridge allowing viewing of the entire mechanism.
The UTTE has a tourbillon movement that is only 2.97mm thick making ot one of the thinnest tourbillons around in its 8.34mm thick case.
The TBR includes a dead beat seconds with a retrograde date function.
This beautifully dialed TBR is a column wheel chronograph with dead beat seconds. This is one of the few times where I am not certain that I prefer the rose gold version. Even all in white stainless steel the watch is simply gorgeous.
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BaselWorld 2014 - Arnold & Son
BaselWorld 2014 - Arnold & Son John Arnold (*1736 in Cornwall) was one of the famous watchmakers of the generation of Abraham-Louis Breguet. His timepieces where instrumental in solving the longitude problem for the British Navy and his "Nr. 36" was the f...
Thanks for sharing Don
My favorite among these is the TBR, but all the designs and complications featured are very impressive. Richard
Wow the Perpetual moon is very nice!
I have never seen another bigger or more detailed moon phase on a watch. Is it a lacquered cream dial with blue lacquer on the moonphase? Thanks Don for the post. I enjoyed reading more about this brand Cheers Robin
Great report as always
I feel Arnold & Son were one of a handful of brands that really made a great showing this year. I love the stainless steel TBR. Dean
Mixed feelings...
I don t know,it seems to me we are in the presence of a fruit salad of messages,watches,most of all stylistic approaches...I see little coherence and personality even if some watches are interesting....a lot of nods to this that and the other almost tryin...
DBS watch
Thanks Don for posting these great photos, the varying models show great inovativeness in design. The DBS sidereal dial is indicating 12 hour periods, sidereal time is always represented with 24 hour periods as that is what astronomers use in observations...
It does have a 24h indication
Hello David, You are right, sidereal time is usually displayed on a 24 base. The sidereal watch from Arnold&Son (DBS) also does that. The 24h indication is indicated by a small counter at 12 o'clock. By the way, I own two antic sidereal pocket watches...
We were able to see these in Los Angeles yesterday
AndrewD and I managed to hit a few watch boutiques yesterday, while "killing time" on our way to the GTG. Much to my amazement, one dealer brought out a display that was basically all the watches in this report! Andrew took photos and I'm sure we will see...