DSTB Stop-Seconds Platinum Kingsand

Name: DSTB Stop-Seconds Platinum Kingsand
Brand: INDP
Price: 725,000 SEK
Availability: OutOfStock

725,000 kr

DSTB Stop-Seconds Platinum Kingsand

DSTB Stop-Seconds Red Gold Cliff Grey and Platinum Kingsand

Precision on Demand
True to the spirit of its founder, one of the pioneers of marine chronometry, Arnold & Son continues to explore three defining fields: Astronomy, World Time and Chronometry. The DSTB Stop-Seconds falls within the latter, and is offered in 18-carat 5N red gold or 950 platinum, each in a limited edition of 18 pieces. The DSTB collection is distinguished by the precision with which the seconds can be read, as on a marine chronometer, thanks to the rare true-seconds complication. Its sophisticated mechanism is visible on the dial. The two limited editions of the DSTB Stop-Seconds also feature an additional function closely associated with chronometry: the stop-seconds function. Activated by pulling out the winding crown, this function stops the seconds hand, allowing the time to be set to the exact second, as was once the practice with chronometers carried aboard ocean-going vessels.

Pushing the Boundaries of Precision
A flagship model in the chronometry collection, the latest version of the DSTB – short for Dial-Side True Beat – adds a stop-seconds function to its signature true-seconds complication, combining tradition with technical sophistication. These new 42 mm versions are each limited to 18 pieces: the red gold model features a grained dial with a Cliff Grey PVD treatment, while the platinum model has a grained dial with a Kingsand PVD treatment.

Building on Inspiration
The deadbeat-seconds – or true-seconds – function was a natural source of inspiration for Arnold & Son, as it was among the key features of the precision instruments supplied by John Arnold to the Royal Navy. In his timepieces, the balance wheels, driven by a detent escapement, beat once every half-second (7,200 vibrations per hour, or two per second).

For the DSTB collection, Arnold & Son chose to make the complication visible on the dial, allowing the true seconds to be read accurately and at a glance. With its gold bridges and release mechanism terminating in a fire-blued steel marine anchor, the complication creates a striking spectacle as the tip of the long, slender seconds hand jumps sharply and cleanly from one second marker to the next above the dial.

A Tribute to Marine Chronometers
Throughout the history of marine chronometry, accurate timekeeping was not a luxury, but a matter of life and death, particularly for sailors. At sea, precise timekeeping made it possible to determine longitude. A deviation of just one second from Greenwich Mean Time could result in a positional error of 463.8 metres. The DSTB Stop-Seconds pays tribute to these pioneers of the high seas by incorporating an additional stop-seconds mechanism, allowing the seconds hand to be halted and the time set with exceptional accuracy.

The Art of Setting a Chronometer
During the era of great ocean voyages, marine chronometers were designed to keep time with exceptional precision. However, once wound, some could not start on their own. The mechanism had to be set in motion manually. Sailors would therefore set the time in advance, then wait for a precise time signal from Greenwich before starting the chronometer. Once started, it would run continuously throughout the voyage. Rather than regularly correcting the time, navigators would monitor its “daily rate”, meaning the number of seconds it gained or lost each day. For their sextant observations, they used a pocket watch synchronised with the reference chronometer, which remained safely stowed away, protected from shocks and moisture. The chronometer therefore continued to run uninterrupted, while the comparison watch made the reference time available on deck.

A Key Innovation
Today, the in-house automatic A&S6303 calibre, with a 55-hour power reserve, uses a Swiss lever escapement. Self-starting, the calibre lends itself naturally to the addition of a stop-seconds mechanism, allowing the time to be set with greater precision. This stops the seconds hand so that the watch, with its deadbeat-seconds function, can be accurately synchronised with a reference time source.

Stop-Seconds: A Complex Mechanism
While the operation itself is simple to understand and perform, the mechanism that makes it possible proved considerably more complex to develop. Stopping a deadbeat-seconds mechanism – which is constantly under tension, storing and releasing energy every second – required the development of a dedicated stop lever designed to restart it instantly when the crown is pushed back in. Though visible neither from the dial side nor through the transparent case back, the mechanism is subtle and ingenious. It combines the originality of the seconds display with the rare pleasure of being able to set the time with absolute precision.

Exceptional Finishing
The case backs are fitted with flat sapphire crystals revealing some of the components of the movement, which is entirely developed, machined, assembled and regulated at the Chaux-de-Fonds manufacture. The watches are water-resistant to 3 bar. Also visible is the extensively openworked 22-carat gold oscillating weight, decorated with guilloché and bearing John Arnold’s cherished anchor ex-libris, the emblem of the company. The opening likewise reveals the traditional finishing applied to the main components of this modern, compact calibre. The bridges, embellished with radial Côtes de Genève, are hand-chamfered, the screws are blued and profiled, the main plate is circular-grained, and the Swiss lever regulating system beats at the now-standard rate of 28,800 vibrations per hour.

Colours to Honour John Arnold
The dial is often considered the face of a watch. For these new DSTB models, Arnold & Son chose a finely grained finish for the dials. For the 18-carat red gold model, the PVD treatment comes in a shade known as Cliff Grey, evoking the cliffs of John Arnold’s native Cornwall. A hand-stitched alligator leather strap in matching tones completes the model and is secured with a pin buckle. For the platinum version, the grained finish comes in Kingsand, a colour inspired by the brass main plates of John Arnold’s movements, which he had gilded to protect them from oxidation. The strap is in ink-blue alligator leather and is also fastened with a pin buckle. For both references, the Roman-numeral sub-dials are cut from white opal and framed by a red gold or platinum ring. Their subtly concave surface adds depth to the composition while discreetly recalling the white enamel dials of John Arnold’s watches, which likewise featured a raised profile.

Technical specifications

Functions

Hours, minutes, true seconds

Movement

Calibre: A&S6203, self-winding mechanical
Jewels: 32
Diameter: 33 mm
Thickness: 5.54 mm (8.33 mm on the bridges of the true-beat seconds)
Power reserve: 55 hours
Frequency: 4 Hz / 28,800 vph
Finishes:
mainplate: circular-grained, palladium-plated
bridges: Radiating Côtes de Genève, chamfered and polished
wheels: circular-grained, polished
screws: blued and chamfered, polished heads
oscillating weight: 22-carat gold
true seconds mechanism: 18-carat gold bridges, polished and chamfered; blued counterweight

Dial

Grained, Kingsand PVD treatment

Hours dial

White opal, concave

Case

Material: Platinum (Pt 950)
Diameter: 42 mm
Thickness: 12.95 mm
Crystal: Domed sapphire with a double-sided anti-reflective coating
Case back: Sapphire with an anti-reflective coating
Water resistance: 3 bar (30 metres/100 feet)

Strap

Material: Ink blue alligator leather, hand-stitched
Clasp: Pin buckle, platinum (Pt 950)

References

1ATCX.H01A.C0263X

Limited editions

18 timepieces

CREATIVITY

As a contemporary Swiss watch brand, Arnold & Son continuously reinvents its approach to pay homage to the work of John Arnold, a man who provided solutions to the challenges of his era, notably the accuracy and reliability of timepieces. As a renowned watchmaker, he produced some of the most accurate marine chronometers of the 18th century and won several awards from the Bureau des Longitudes, spurring him on in his research into timekeeping. As an inventor, he filed a number of patents, including one for a compensation balance featuring a bimetallic balance-spiral (1775) and another for a helical balance spring with terminal curves (1782). He also produced simplified chronometer design principles that permitted mass production of these timepieces, a number of which were made available to His Majesty’s Royal Navy, making John Arnold one of its principal suppliers. One of his least known but most significant contributions was the modern definition of the term ‘chronometer’, which today refers to a high-precision timepiece driven by a movement that has passed an accuracy inspection carried out by an official neutral body.

AUTHENTICITY

A Fine Watchmaking House stands out for its mastery of the classics. Arnold & Son has based its identity on its ability to produce fine watchmaking complications that are linked to the heritage of John Arnold. These include true seconds (or dead-beat seconds) – a function recalling the escapements of pendulum clocks marking out the seconds – and dual time zones driven by twin regulating organs, which hark back to the original method of maritime positioning. The moon-phase displays also illustrate the brand’s mastery of the classics, while revealing a more unconventional side through the use of large moons in sculpted gold. Lastly, the power reserves of up to eight days offered by Arnold & Son pay homage to marine chronometers, which also benefited from an impressive autonomy.

The twenty or so calibres presented to date by Arnold & Son have all been conceived, designed, developed, machined, decorated, assembled and adjusted by its sister Manufacture, La Joux-Perret. This independence and creativity demonstrate the House’s ability to perpetuate John Arnold’s exceptional inventions.

AESTHETICS

The style of Arnold & Son timepieces is instantly recognisable. The three-dimensional architecture of their movements, the late-18th-century-style cantilever balance-cocks, the George-V-style bridges, the constant quest for multiaxial symmetry and the artfully crafted guilloché dials go hand-in-hand with openworked components, from a single barrel to the full range of grande complication calibres.

EXCLUSIVITY

Arnold & Son’s remarkably balanced collections are all produced in limited series and distributed around the world through carefully selected points of sale. They are priced fairly, because excellence is bound to honesty.

As Swiss watches with English roots, they stand out without being ostentatious. Arnold & Son timepieces are a delight for the eyes and the mind, and are aimed at customers who are looking for something unique.

Astronomy, Chronometry and World Time

Arnold & Son's three founding principles

Throughout human history, measuring time has always referred to the stars. It was by observing certain stars and understanding their cycle that the first calendars were established with impressive accuracy. It took several millennia before this precision was enclosed in a timepiece like the ones designed by John Arnold.

The golden age of maritime explorations and discoveries ushered this precision into a new technical ideal – determining longitude at sea. Its immediate corollary was the identification of local time, which changed constantly as the observer moved along an east-west axis. Astronomy, chronometry and what we now call world time are thus inextricably linked within one and the same question, to which John Arnold and his son devoted their lives, their art and their genius.

This is how these three dimensions – astronomy, chronometry and world time – have come to be embodied in the House's contemporary timepieces. Echoes of John Arnold's inventions and preoccupations, these pillars represent the foundations on which the Arnold & Son collections are based.

Chronometry: Be accurate

Rate accuracy, which is known as chronometry, is the key requirement of Arnold & Son's contemporary watchmaking. It is the standard of excellence for its collections, the first condition to be met and constantly checked, whether it is at the forefront or in the background of a watch designed by Arnold & Son. It is the most discreet of a movement's characteristics.

When building an Arnold & Son collection, all the thinking is focused on this chronometry. The manufacture calibres are based on advanced technical fundamentals that are not necessarily the best known. One of them is the choice of small, lightweight balances capable of rapidly returning to their isochronous rate after the latter has been disturbed by inevitable everyday shocks. Another is the routine use of large barrels or even two series-coupled barrels to store the energy required for the movement to function. They consequently provide Arnold & Son's manual winding calibres with above-average power reserves of 90 hours and more. A third is the particular attention paid to manufacturing the gear trains, roller-burnishing the pinions and polishing the gear teeth, as well as the precision of the machining and therefore the relative positions of the moving parts, a key concept in rate accuracy.

The tourbillon (or the fact of putting the regulating organ in rotation on its axis to best adjust the effects of gravity on the balance and its hairspring) was patented after John Arnold's death, but it was undoubtedly at the heart of his chronometric research and discussions with his friend Abraham-Louis Breguet, who incidentally assembled his first tourbillon on a John Arnold pocket watch in homage to this great watchmaker. Nowadays, the tourbillon has become a must in Arnold & Son collections.

While the tourbillon was not a complication in John Arnold's time, constant force underpinned the design of his marine chronometers. The regularity of the rate of the sprung balance relies on the consistency of the energy that it receives. However, this naturally fluctuates due to the circular and spiral nature of the mainspring contained in the barrel. To achieve a perfectly smooth torque, in other words a constant force, Arnold & Son uses a one-second constant-force mechanism. Housed just before the escapement, it stores up a small but always equal amount of energy in a secondary spring, the remontoire. Thus, every second, the sprung balance receives very precisely the same force to power its oscillations. These become more even, thereby creating the conditions for a high-precision rate.

Arnold & Son also works with another of John Arnold's historical chronometry indicators: deadbeat seconds, a mechanism that was indispensable to navigators at the time for calculating longitude. This mechanism advances one step each second, rather than six or eight smaller jumps in sync with the frequency of the balance. Instead of the term deadbeat seconds, Arnold & Son prefers a name whose very sound means accuracy: “true beat second”. Its jump is a signature of John Arnold's marine chronometers and a complication that is still alive and well in the House's collections.

Astronomy: Under the sky

The Pole Star, Southern Cross, astrolabes and sextant: measuring time has relied on the recurrence of astronomical phenomena in order to find long, reliable points of reference there that can be used under any conditions. The fruit of the human ingenuity, patience and dedication of countless observers and astronomers from every culture, these markers of cyclical time are foundational for Arnold & Son watchmaking.

Astronomical complications are a signature of Arnold & Son collections, with the moon as the heavenly body of choice, main subject and major inspiration. The distinctive feature of the Brand's moon phase timepieces is that they feature “astronomical” display precision as a matter of course. This term corresponds to an accumulated one-day deviation in the moon phase display every 122 years. Since setting this complication requires great finesse, the Arnold & Son moons generally have a double display with a secondary indicator on the case back next to the movement. This extremely rare display bears witness to Arnold & Son's involvement in all types of development and reflects its favoured themes, which are as much chronometric as astronomical.

Over and above their precision, Arnold & Son's moon phases attract all the light, either with a large moon opening up over half the dial, or with a 12-mm three-dimensional rotating moon, making it the largest of all moons. Whether in two or three dimensions, the moon is always treated as a small work of artistic craftsmanship, composed of materials that are rare in watchmaking such as marble or Paraíba tourmaline, or delicate such as mother-of-pearl, meteorite or aventurine glass. The Arnold & Son moon also shines at night, often with a subtle addition of luminescent material.

World Time: Here, elsewhere, everywhere

With ocean navigation, humankind divided up the world and invented longitudes, which were calculated by comparing the local time, observed using the sun, and the time at a starting point, kept by an extremely reliable timepiece. John Arnold was one of the leading suppliers of chronometers to the British Navy. He was the one who successfully improved the reliability and simplified the production of these indispensable marine chronometers, so much so that he became a benchmark among great explorers such as James Cook and later Dr David Livingstone. The indication of several time zones is therefore integral to Arnold & Son's watchmaking identity.

As this navigation was itself inseparable from cartography, for this world time complication Arnold & Son has chosen to depict a three-dimensional terrestrial hemisphere, making it possible to tell what time it is at any point.

In parallel to this graphic vision, Arnold & Son has developed a second approach to the time elsewhere in the world: with a double tourbillon featuring two distinct rotating regulating organs, making it possible to follow time zones offset by 15, 30 or 45 minutes compared to a full hour – a freedom in terms of setting that remains extremely rare.

Once again, and because this double display is based on a profoundly chronometric complication, Arnold & Son’s fundamental principles are interwoven. One never advances alone; there are always two – if not three – together. This is how a pillar's strength is measured: it relies on the next one, creating the conditions for a solidity that stands the test of time.