Important English open faced pocket chronometer Circa 1782

Silver chronometer by John Arnold
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Important English open faced pocket chronometer, Hallmarked London 1782. John Arnold chronometer movement, plate completely signed, Invenit et Fecit No. 38/76, spring detent escapement, helical hairspring, diamond end stone, very early OZ balance. White enamel dial with Roman numerals and blued steel hands. Plain silver case, case maker’s mark ITP. Comes with a mahogany box and matching keys.
Movement and dial signed and numbered.
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Diameter: 62 mm
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Weight: 177 g
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Signed: John Arnold London – John Arnold London Inv. et Fecit
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This watch is not yet registered in the list of known Arnold chronometers. John Arnold is regarded as the most important English chronometer maker and manufacturer of the first pocket chronometer. He made about 94 pocket chronometers ‘of the Best Kind’ at that time and 37 are still registered as existent (in addition to the present chronometer No. 76). Of these 38 chronometers, about three quarter are affected by more or less major changes in their originality (e.g. no Arnold escapement or balance, no original dial, no original case, etc.). This chronometer belongs to less than ten chronometers ‘of the Best Kind’ of his hand which can be regarded as almost original and unchanged! In Hans Staeger’s ‘100 years precision watches from John Arnold to Arnold & Frodsham 1763-1862’ the Arnold Chronometer No. 75 is presented with the note that it is probably the 1st Arnold Chronometer with an OZ balance. Number 76 can be considered the second earliest known Arnold chronometer with this balance.

The last beautifully preserved and historically significant comparable Arnold Chronometer (20/63) was auctioned for € 143.900,-.

John Arnold was born in 1736 and died on August 11^th, 1799. He was an English watchmaker and inventor. Arnold was apprenticed to his father, who was also a clockmaker in Bodmin, Cornwell and probably also worked with his uncle, a gunsmith. Around 1755, at the age of 19, he left England and worked as a watchmaker in the Hague, Holland, returning to England around 1757. In 1762, he met William McGuire on whom he made a sufficient impression and McGuire gave him a loan, enabling him to set up a workshop at Devereux Court, Strand, London. By the time he was 28, Arnold’s watches, be they verge or cylinder, displayed interesting original components such as straight-line compensation curbs and minute repeating by increments of 10 minutes instead of the more common 15 minutes. In 1764, Arnold obtained permission to present an exceptionally small half-quarter repeating watch with a cylinder escapement mounted in a ring to King George III. He made another watch for the King around 1768, which was a gold and enamel pair-cased watch with a movement that had every refinement, including minute repetition and centre seconds. It was around 1770 that Arnold developed a portable precision timekeeper. His basic design was simple whilst consistently accurate and mechanically reliable. Importantly, the relatively simple and conventional design of his movement facilitated its production in quantity at a reasonable price whilst also enabling easier maintenance and adjustment. He successfully found a way to simplify Harrison’s timekeeper design. He established himself at 2 Adam Street, Adelphi Buildings, Strand, in 1771 and researched marine chronometers here over the next eleven years. Arnold was the first to design a watch that was both practical and accurate, and also brought the chronometer into use in its modern sense, as a precision timekeeper. His technical progress enabled the quantity production of marine chronometers for use on board ships from around 1782. Arnold was admitted to the Clockmakers’ Company in 1783. The important French watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet was a very good friend of Arnold. It appears Arnold gave Breguet permission to incorporate or develop any of Arnold’s inventions and techniques into his own watches. Arnold’s son John Roger Arnold was born in 1769 and served an apprenticeship with both his father and Abraham-Louis Breguet. In 1787, he and his father founded the company, Arnold & Son. John Arnold also appears to have been the first to think of the concept of the tourbillon. He seems to have experimented with his idea but died in 1799 before he could develop it further. It is known that Breguet made a successful and practical tourbillon mechanism around 1795 but, nevertheless, he acknowledged Arnold as the inventor by presenting his first tourbillon in 1808 to Arnold’s son John Roger. As a tribute to his friend Arnold Sr..