In 2019, for the second consecutive year, Arnold & Son is supporting the Monegasque Association against Muscular Dystrophy by participating in the Only Watch auction. For the occasion, the brand based in La Chaux-de-Fonds has created a unique edition of its Dial Side True Beat model, better known by the acronym DSTB. Arnold & Son chose this piece in particular to highlight the infinite treasures of every second and to celebrate life. Each short second also serves to underscore the long periods of time devoted to scientific and medical research into muscular dystrophy. The DSTB will be auctioned in Geneva on Saturday 9 November 2019.

Arnold & Son’s DSTB model calls on the watchmaking science of John Arnold, a British watchmaking genius active in the late 18th century. Throughout his career, he focused his efforts on the quest for extreme chronometric accuracy.

John Arnold garnered renown in part for his marine chronometers, which naturally featured a “dead-beat second” mechanism – more favourably known as a “true second” hand. This complication involves the second hand making 60 jumps per minute. It makes pronounced jumps from marker to marker instead of following the rhythm set by the oscillator frequency, which moves the hand several times per second and results in a continuous second.

As the display always points to a readable marker on the minute circle, it allows for an extremely precise reading, recalling both regulator-style workshop clocks and marine chronometers. Both of these kinds of timepieces had to be extremely precise as well as clearly legible.
 

The components of this unusual display can be found under a large transparent sapphire circle punctuated with light sky-blue indexes. To produce these precise components, the brand had to call on LIGA production technology, where, instead of being machined, the parts are formed using a technique reminiscent of microprocessor production.

The system operates in a similar way to a detent escapement. The movement drives an indirect seconds’ wheel with a lever fitted with a counterweight. This is connected to a lever ending in a ruby pallet stone. Every second, the energy accumulated lifts up the pallet stone, which allows the true seconds wheel and hand to move forwards by one notch. A spring then returns the lever to its place.

At the heart of the system, an anchor plays the highly visible role of counterweight. A symbol of the House and featured in its logo, the anchor serves as a reminder of the watchmaking roots of John Arnold, who devoted years of work to marine chronometers.