The Green Armin Strom Mirrored Force Resonance Manufacture Edition (Live Pics & Price)

The watch we are about to present today is the new variant of the upgraded 2022 Mirrored Force Resonance, first launched in 2016. It comes to market only a few months after the Armin Strom Mirrored Force Resonance Manufacture Edition Blue, with dial colour and the strap offered as the only difference between the two. Still, Armin Strom has secured a place in watchmaking history for developing an ingenious solution to exploit the great resonance phenomenon to benefit wristwatch accuracy. The new Mirrored Force Resonance Manufacture Edition Green is here to demonstrate the brand’s next generation of resonance timepieces.

Claude Greisler and Serge Michel, who bought Armin Strom from its founder in 2006, made it their mission to explore the extraordinary resonance phenomenon. In a way, they continued down the road first travelled by none other than Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695), one of the most significant figures in the history of science, who, among other achievements, is considered the inventor of the pendulum clocks and balance spring. Resonance in watchmaking and the role of Christiaan Huygens in watchmaking history are very well told by Claude Greisler, Armin Strom’s Head Watchmaker and co-owner – read this article here to know everything about resonance. One important thing to remember before you get buried with information or bored: resonance has a stabilising effect, so better accuracy, and it reduces adverse effects on accuracy, like from a shock. Also, please consider the following to understand the importance of Armin Strom’s recent achievements.

After the famous observation made by Huygens in 1665 when the Dutch scientist discovered the resonance of two separate pendulum clocks, which led to his experiments with resonance with no success, it was the French clockmaker Antide Janvier (1751-1835) who, about a century later, around 1780 became the first to have made functioning resonance pendulum clocks (one is displayed at the F.P. Journe Manufacture in Geneva). Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823) also spent time harnessing this phenomenon, making his resonance pendulum clocks. However, he went further than Janvier, extending the resonance principle to the pocket watch mechanism with two balances. Today, three known specimens of Breguet’s resonance pocket watches exist, and the very first, № 2667 “Montre plate a deux movements”, is dated 1814.

After another period of seemed oblivion, the topic of resonance watches was revisited in the 1930s by the students of the École d’Horlogerie in Le Sentier, who built movements with a single gear train driving double balance wheels linked by a differential, constructed according to the principles of resonance. From 1932 to 1934, six known resonance pocket watches were created by students at that watchmaking school, working under the guardianship of headmaster Marcel Builleumier, including a movement by Albert Piguet (1914-2000), a notable Swiss watchmaker and student at the school at that time.

More recently, at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century, resonance watches were produced by Francois-Paul Journe (F. P. Journe Chronomètre à Résonance, 2000), with pendulum resonance clocks built by other masters. The list of watchmakers that ventured into the resonance territory, especially those that successfully made it work in a wristwatch, is short. Beat Haldimann, like Breguet, worked in two genres: he made resonance pendulum clocks (H101 Resonance Double Regulator, 2000) and resonance watches (H2 Resonance Flying Tourbillon, 2005). There is Vianney Halter and his La Resonance and Deep Space Resonance Tourbillon. Now, all praise Armin Strom, the first company to offer a design featuring the two balances with the clutch spring – the system that “prevents oscillation-rate deviations rather than just remediating them”, to quote Claude Greisler. And probably the best-ever solution imagined to properly use the resonance effect in a wristwatch. 

As in the previous editions, the new Mirrored Force Resonance Manufacture Edition Green employs the patented resonance clutch spring that links the two balance springs that oscillate in opposite directions, so energy flows between the two. The resonance at work is demonstrated by the twin-second indicators linked to the regulating organs, reset via the pusher at 2 o’clock. The watch achieves synchronisation of beats within minutes, which results in better stability and accuracy.

Since last year, Mirrored Force Resonance models have a more graceful movement with added fine-finished bridges and feature a slightly more compact stainless steel case, 43mm diameter and 11.55mm thick. Since the update, Mirrored Force Resonance models have been presented with black gold (sold out) and blue dials (still available). The unique green colour applied to the grenage off-centre hours and minutes dial with a circular satin-brushed chapter ring found on this new watch was chosen “because it harmonises with the polished and decorated parts of the open-worked movement“, explains Claude Greisler. This can be said of the blue edition, too, but the green, almost turquoise subdial, looks softer and, despite the beautiful finish, does not take attention away from the open-worked movement on display.

Turn the watch over, and you will enjoy the rear view of the calibre ARF21 with exposed components previously part of one main plate or concealed by bridges. There is depth, contrast and texture, enhanced by the fully engraved recessed plates with text as if to explain the watch and technology.

Armin Strom will produce only 50 pieces of the new Mirrored Force Resonance Manufacture Edition Green, offered on a grey Alcantara strap with white stitching and double folding clasp in stainless steel. The price for this watch is CHF 63,000 or EUR 70,000, which is by no means cheap, but compared to what it would cost you to buy a resonance watch from another watchmaker, should you find one available, this is a steal.

For more information, please visit www.arminstrom.com.