Arnold & Son HM Perpetual Moon: Over the recent weeks I’ve been lucky enough to get my hands on this HM Perpetual Moon timepiece; which is part of Arnold & Son’s Royal Collection, demonstrating the brand’s traditional watchmaking and classical decorative arts. Arnold & Son were a talking point for many at Basel World and the reasons behind this are clear when you get your hands on their highly technical and well finished timepieces.
The Dial: I’m starting here because the HM Perpetual Moon features one of the largest moon phase discs in the world, measuring 29mm, which occupies practically half of the watch face running from 10 to 2 o’clock. The moon itself measures 11.2mm and has been hand engraved, made of red gold – which creates an instant visual impact. On the cream dial version the moon has a beautiful guilloche sunray pattern. However, on the blue and black dial version the dial has been finished with this guilloché sunray pattern, which only adds to the effect.
The Movement: The HM Perpetual Moon features a beautifully decorated movement and is also one of the most accurate, complicated moon phases available today which also delivers 122 years of accuracy. The hand-wound A&S1512 calibre movement features 27 jewels and is 34mm in diameter. It has two barrels; which supplies it with 90 hours of power reserve. The movement has been hand decorated and features manually chamfered bridges with polished edges, fine circular graining and Côtes de Genève, along with blued screws.
The Case: The case measures a very wearable and modest 42mm in diameter, which features cambered anti-reflective sapphire crystal on both sides. There is also an exhibition case back, so you can admire the hand finished movement. They are available in Stainless Steel or Red Gold, and both versions of the HM Perpetual come on either black or brown hand-stitched alligator. At 3 o’clock the oversized fluted crown does give it a classical pocket watch feel and at 2 o’clock there is a smartly positioned integrated pusher for quick-setting the moon phase.
Conclusion: The HM Perpetual is absolutely stunning in the metal and truly is a well-made timepiece. You can’t help but look at that huge moon phase which instantly grabs your attention, simply because as mentioned before almost takes up half of the dial. The absence of a seconds hand only makes sense when you look at the layout of the dial. It would’ve been nice to see the guilloché dial on all the available HM Perpetual Moon versions but the matt finish on the white dial version still looks stunning.
For more information on the Arnold & Son HM Perpetual Moon, visit the official website.
