Arnold & Son TB Victory Watch

TB Victory

A fitting tribute to England’s most famous warship:
the TB Victory from Arnold & Son

The designers of Arnold & Son’s Instrument Collection took their inspiration from the distinctive instrument-like chronometers produced by John Arnold and his son, John Roger Arnold. These delivered the robustness, reliability and down-to-the-second precision needed by marine navigators to determine longitude. The TB Victory is a scintillating combination of maritime precision with aesthetic perfection and celebrates a battleship that owed its long active life, at least in part, to the accuracy of those chronometers.

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The HMS Victory is one of the best known in English maritime history. After a glorious career spanning forty years, she had her finest hour as Lord Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Now, with the exquisite TB Victory, Arnold & Son unveils the latest of its true beat timepieces. Gracing the right-hand side of the dial is a 22-carat solid gold appliqué of the famous warship, traditionally hand-chased with breathtaking richness of detail by Arnold & Son’s master engraver and then duplicated for the series. In traditional hand-engraving, hardened steel burins and other tools are used to create the cuts, lines and texturing that build up entire images – in this case a perfectly sculpted likeness of the HMS Victory – and underline Arnold & Son’s mastery of the decorative arts.

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The TB Victory timepiece has a distinctive off-centre subdial for the time of day, one of the unmistakable design cues of the Instrument Collection. Central to the cream-coloured dial is the timepiece’s complication: a central true beat (TB) seconds. A rarely found complication these days, the true beat seconds (or dead beat seconds) stands for superlative accuracy and was an invaluable instrument for marine navigators. The combination of a central true beat seconds with an automatic winding system calls for enormous technical expertise. This is made possible by an internationally patented system and calls for parts accurate to a micron, or one-thousandth of a millimetre. The key components are produced using state-of-the-art LIGA (lithography, electroplating and moulding) manufacturing technology.

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The TB Victory is powered by the A&S6103 calibre, the first automatic movement with an integrated true beat system to be developed, designed and manufactured entirely at Arnold & Son’s workshops in La Chaux-de-Fonds. The exquisite haute horlogerie finishing includes manually chamfered bridges and polished edges, fine circular graining and Côtes de Genève rayonnantes, a brushed and skeletonized rotor, and blued screws.

The TB Victory will be available in an exclusive limited edition of just 28 timepieces.

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Technical Specifications
  • Calibre: A&S6103
    Exclusive Arnold & Son mechanical movement, self-winding, ceramic ball bearing, 30 jewels, diameter 30.4 mm, thickness 7.79 mm, power reserve 50 h, 28’800 vibrations/h, stop seconds
  • Functions: hours, minutes, true beat seconds
  • Movement decoration: rhodium treated with Haute Horlogerie finishing: manually chamfered bridges with polished edges, fine circular graining and Côtes de Genève rayonnantes, brushed and skeletonised rotor, blued screws with beveled and mirror-polished heads
  • Dial colour: cream, 22-carat solid gold appliqué
  • Case: 18-carat rose gold, diameter 44 mm, cambered sapphire with anti-reflective coating on both sides, case back see-through sapphire, water-resistant to 30 m
  • Strap: Hand-stitched brown or black alligator leather
  • Limited edition: 28 timepieces
  • Reference: 1ARAP.I01A.C120P