Pre-Basel 2015: Introducing The Arnold & Son Golden Wheel, Combining Wandering Hours With Deadbeat Seconds (With Specs And Price)

The Arnold & Son Golden Wheel is an intriguing combination of complications, a wandering hours time display using three sapphire discs, and a central deadbeat seconds hand.

Arnold & Son is adept at integrating a deadbeat seconds into all manner of complications, most recently into a chronograph with twin seconds handsBaselworld 2015 will bring arguably the most unusual dead seconds timepiece yet, the Golden Wheel. The Golden Wheel displays the time via three sapphire discs, each rotating on its own axis, as well as around the dial. Known as a wandering hours, this form of time display is not new, having been found on pocket watches dating from the eighteenth century. In modern watchmaking the Audemars Piguet Star Wheel and Urwerk UR-105 are probably the best known implementations of the mechanism. What makes the Golden Wheel unique is the central deadbeat seconds, which means the seconds hand ticks in one second increments, rather than sweeping along smoothly as in most mechanical watches.

Time on the dial is read on the semi-circular plate on the top half, made of mother of pearl with a minute track from 0 to 60. The sapphire discs for the hours are mounted on carrousel made of 18-ct red gold, hence the Golden Wheel moniker.

The case is also in red gold, with a diameter of 44 mm. This is limited to 125 pieces, with a price of 43,300 Swiss francs before taxes, equivalent to US$42,500 at current exchange rates.

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Introducing The HYT Skull – Punk Rock Meets Hydro-Mechanical Time (With Specs And Price)

HYT has appropriated a recently fashionable motif in watchmaking and combined it with the underpinnings of its H1 wristwatch to create the Skull, which displays the time on a skull-shaped glass tube.

Members of the global elite who fancy themselves punk rockers have made skull watches a great commercial success for several independent brands, particularly Richard Mille and Hublot. The latest to join the fray is HYT, makes of timepieces with liquid time displays. The HYT Skull indicates only the hours, via a coloured liquid inside a glass tube that circles a skull-shaped dial plate.

Based on the H1 wristwatch, the Skull has a pair of bellows, located where a skull’s teeth would be, to drive the liquid inside the tube. Two liquids fill the tube, one water-based and coloured, while the other is a clear oil-based fluid. This allows for a clear indication of the time while preventing the liquids from mixing.

The right eye of the skull contains the power reserve display, with graduated colour inserts to show the remaining power reserve – the eye darkens as the mainspring winds down. And the other eye contains the constant seconds hand.

The Skull has a 51 mm diameter case, larger than the H1 with minor design changes including the removal of the crown guard. Visible through a display back tinted to match the colour of the dial, the movement is manually wound with a 65 hour power reserve.

Two versions of the Skull are available, the Green Eye, with green fluid and a DLC titanium case. Limited to 50 pieces, the Skull Green Eye will cost 100,000 Swiss francs.

And the other is the Skull Red Eye in DLC titanium and red gold, a limited edition of 25 pieces with a price of 90,000 Swiss francs.

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