Arnold & Son traces its identity to three founding principles, Astronomy, Chronometry and World Time, each inherited from John Arnold, the eighteenth-century watchmaker whose contributions to precision timekeeping shaped the course of navigation. The moon’s role in that story is more than symbolic. In 1768, Arnold’s work caught the attention of Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne, then researching methods for determining longitude through lunar distance. Rather than adapt John Harrison’s H4, Arnold set out to build his own marine timekeeper. Maskelyne trialled it in the West Indies in 1769, and the recognition that followed gave Arnold the standing to offer the Board of Longitude a chronometer, a term he himself coined, that was accurate, reproducible and designed for life at sea.
The “Colours of the Moon” limited editions draw directly from that astronomical lineage. Each of the three new Perpetual Moon references is housed in a 41.5mm stainless steel case measuring 11.67mm thick and powered by the in-house A&S1512 manual-winding calibre with a 90-hour power reserve. Visible through the sapphire caseback, the movement is finished with radiating Côtes de Genève on the bridges, hand-bevelled edges, perlage on the main plate, snailed wheels and blued screws with polished chamfered heads. The caseback also reveals a secondary moon-phase display with graduated markings for precise astronomical adjustment. On the dial side, the moon phase sky and dial itself are made from mother-of-pearl treated through a PVD process, a world first in watchmaking, which applies a thin metallic layer in a controlled vacuum to produce shifting reflections that recall the layered grain of Damascus steel as light changes angle and intensity.
The Blue Moon references the atmospheric phenomena that can cast the lunar surface in cool, blue-shifted tones and the rare occurrence of a second full moon within a season. The Golden Moon captures the warm filtration of the atmosphere when the moon sits low on the horizon. The Red Moon calls up the spectacle of a lunar eclipse, when Earth’s shadow narrows the light to the longest red wavelengths alone. On each dial, the constellations Cassiopeia and Ursa Major are hand-painted in Super-LumiNova around the lunar disc, chosen for the role they played in guiding mariners to the Pole Star. Each watch is completed with a hand-stitched alligator leather strap in a matching tone, with a stainless steel pin buckle.
