Swiss watchmaker Arnold & Son has become well known for its avant-garde, celestially inspired designs. In less than a week, the brand will be showcasing several of these timepieces at the upcoming WatchTime New York event, taking place at Manhattan’s Gotham Hall from October 22 to 24. Among them are two watches launched this year, the Globetrotter Gold, with its massive terrestrial display, and the Luna Magna Ultimate I, an even more luxurious iteration of the original Luna Magna launched earlier in 2021.
Arnold & Son Globetrotter Gold
The Globetrotter Gold is the latest update to Arnold & Son’s well-regarded Globetrotter collection of eye-catching world-timers. At its debut earlier this summer, the watch represented the latest take on the “globe on the wrist” design of the original 2018 Globetrotter, updating its distinctive style with an 18k rose-gold case and an attractive blue dial.
The large, 45-mm case has a polished finish and serves as a canvas for the three-dimensional dial that it surrounds, its unique world-time display on almost full view beneath a domed sapphire crystal and the signature rose-gold flying bridge spanning the dial’s center line.
Along the dial’s outer edge, we find a lacquered outline in shades of sunburst blue, its background featuring a slight fumé look and accented with applied and lume-filled rose-gold hour markers. At the center of the dial, a rotating dome with a global-map surface showcases rhodium-plated continents upon hand-painted blue lacquered oceans and coasts. The globe rotates beneath the aforementioned, rose-gold flying bridge, along with the red arrow hands that point to the hours and minutes on a 24-hour sapphire scale surrounding it. Altogether, the arrangement gives the dial a 3D “floating” appearance that is unique among world-time watches.
The back of the Globetrotter Gold offers an attractive display worthy of the one of the dial side. Behind its sapphire window, we can glimpse the beautifully finished Caliber A&S6022, an automatic movement completed with NAC treatment throughout its various parts, along with circular finished wheels, Geneva stripes, and a guilloché-accented and skeletonized 22k-rose-gold oscillating weight. The automatic caliber beats at a frequency of 28,800 vph and amasses a 45-hour power reserve when fully wound.
Arnold & Son Luna Magna Ultimate I
The Luna Magna Ultimate I serves as Arnold & Son’s other highlight piece at WTNY 2021. It follows up the original Luna Magna, which was notable at the time of its launch as featuring the largest three-dimensional moon-phase ever built into a wristwatch.
In the Ultimate I version of the watch, that incredible moon-phase is given additional celestial brilliance through the use of an 18K white-gold case, a blue colorway, and the bright application of gemstones throughout the case and dial. Arnold & Son describes the timepiece as “the first chapter of the Luna Magna Ultimate series,” highlighting in its design and execution “light, astronomical precision, and the truly exceptional.”
Among so many highlights, the watch’s most important horological feature remains, of course, its namesake three-dimensional moon phase. The moon that dominates the lower dial of the Luna Magna combines one hemisphere of diamonds, for the light side of the moon, and the other of sapphires, for the dark side, each composed of 161 individual stones. The 18k white-gold sphere measures a substantial 12 mm in diameter and floats inside a blue field featuring ruthenium crystals that recalls the night sky; it is balanced by a smaller subdial for the running time, made of white opal.
A round, polished case, 44 mm in diameter and made of 18k white gold, hosts the incredible display and is itself adorned with a total of 112 baguette-cut diamonds. The hand-wound Caliber A&S1021 resides within the heart of the watch, a movement fully developed, manufactured, assembled and adjusted in-house at Arnold & Son’s manufacture in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. Aside from its 3-Hz frequency, its impressive 90-hour power reserve, elaborate haute horlogerie finishes, the movement is distinguished by a special indicator for the age of the moon on its rear side. The latter device works in concert with the sophisticated moon-phase function, which is engineered to replicate the precise, real-life lunar cycle of 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 2.8 seconds and thus would not need adjustment for 122 years. The movement even makes such an adjustment easy, as the moon-phase settings can be accessed directly through the watch’s crown.
The Arnold & Son Luna Magna is mounted on a hand-stitched, blue alligator strap, which fastens via a classical pin buckle in 18k white gold. The strap connects to the watch through case’s deeply tapered lugs, which extend the curvature of the sapphire crystal and follow the natural contours of the wrist.
Pricing and Availability
The Arnold & Son Globetrotter Gold and Luna Magna Ultimate I are both available now at select boutiques, with the former priced at $45,900 and limited to 28 pieces, and the latter limited to eight pieces and priced at 169,000 CHF, or about $181,900.
Both of these rare Arnold & Son timepieces will be featured alongside even an array of other fantastic watches at WatchTime New York 2021, kicking off this Friday, October 22. To learn more and purchase tickets, click here!
