Arnold & Son Gives the DSTB a Stop-Seconds, So You Can Finally Set It to the Second

The DSTB is Arnold & Son’s deadbeat seconds watch, part of the brand’s chronometry line. The name stands for Dial Side True Beat: the seconds hand jumps once a second instead of sweeping, and the mechanism that drives it sits on top of the movement, facing you, so the whole thing is on display. The DSTB has always been a watch about seconds, yet until now you couldn’t stop the hand to set it precisely. Two new limited editions fix that with a crown-operated stop-seconds.

The case is 42mm wide, available in red gold or platinum, with a domed sapphire crystal over on top and a flat sapphire crystal caseback. Thickness is decent at 12.95mm, of which a chunk is used up by the domed crystal. Water resistance is 30 meters, which will keep the thing safe enough.

The red gold model gets a grey dial Arnold & Son calls Cliff Grey, and the platinum gets a golden tone called Kingsand. Both are PVD-treated with a grained finish, and the names are references to John Arnold’s Cornwall and the brass plates of his movements. Time is indicated on a small opal subdial at four o’clock, with a slight concave shape. Most of the main dial, however, is used up by the seconds mechanism: three mirror-polished, wishbone-shaped gold bridges, openworked so you can see the wheels and a blued lever shaped like an anchor. A long blued hand jumps around a blue printed track above it all.

The movement is the in-house calibre A&S6303, automatic, beating at 4Hz with 55 hours of power reserve. It’s derived from the compact A&S6003 used in the 2023 DSTB, with the stop-seconds added. The brand ties the feature to how Royal Navy navigators set a deck watch against the ship’s chronometer. Finishing includes radiating Côtes de Genève on the bridges, a circular-grained mainplate, blued screws and hand-chamfered edges, plus an openworked 22k gold rotor engraved with guilloché and the anchor logo. The red gold model comes on a grey alligator strap with a pin buckle in red gold. The platinum comes on an alligator strap in ink blue with a platinum pin buckle.

The Arnold & Son DSTB Stop-Seconds is limited to 18 pieces per metal. Red gold is priced at CHF 46,000 and platinum at CHF 56,800, both including VAT. See more on the Arnold & Son website.