Hodinkee
Hands-On: The Arnold & Son DSTB Stop-Seconds
One of the brands we don’t talk about all that often here is Arnold & Son. It’s a brand that offers an interesting heritage story—Swiss watchmaking with English roots, as the brand proudly headlines on its website in homage to eighteenth-century watchmaker John Arnold. It sits within the Citizen Group as one of the brand’s prestige properties, along with Angelus, and both are led by Pascal Béchu. Many people may be surprised to find out that the Citizen Group’s portfolio extends quite a bit out of Japan, with other familiar names like Bulova, Frederique Constant, Alpina, and La-Joux Perret as key properties, but Arnold & Son stands out mostly due to its price point and complicated high horology offerings. A little over two weeks ago, in time for WatchTime NY, Arnold & Son introduced a new update to the brand’s DSTB models—the new DSTB Stop-Seconds limited editions in Cliff Grey and Kingsand. Both are limited to 18 pieces each. On the surface, they might look just like new dial and metal combinations for the pre-existing DSTB (Dial-Side True Beat) references, but these new editions get a pretty major upgrade—hacking functionality for the deadbeat seconds. Hacking seconds might not seem like an update worthy of celebration, but for a watch that puts so much emphasis on the seconds hand, it is a welcome sight. The deadbeat (or true-seconds) complication is, unsurprisingly, the focus of the architecture here, thanks to the mechanism of the complication iso...
