A Collector’s Retrospective: Two Years Wearing the Arcanaut Arc II

I purchased my first Arcanaut, the Arc II Fordite, on April 29, 2023. I know the exact date thanks in part to Instagram, where I documented the acquisition, as one does, at that year’s Windup Watch Fair in San Francisco. In the two years and change that I’ve owned the Arc II, my fondness for it has only grown, and Arcanaut has become, to put it plainly, one of my very favorite watch brands. I wrote a pretty thorough review of the Arc II a few months after buying it, and scrolling through it today I really can’t see any particular assertion I’d take back now that I’ve lived with it for even longer. But I thought two years would be a good time return to the watch and evaluate it again, this time in context with another Arcanaut that I added to my collection at the end of last year: the Experimental Arc II Tiger Sh’arc.

 

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The first thing I’ll say here about the Tiger Sh’arc is how unlikely, under normal circumstances, that I’d choose to own one. I don’t have a strict “no duplicates” rule when it comes to keeping multiple watches from a single brand in my collection, but it’s something I’m a bit leery of. As someone who generally speaking prioritizes variety and originality in my watchbox, owning two or more watches by one maker ultimately seems like a waste of (my) resources. My philosophy has always been that I want to experience as much as possible. How different could one Arc II really be to another?

It turns out, they can be very different, and I’ll get to how and why. But it’s worth acknowledging first that my experience with the Arc II has shifted my perspective on the value of variety in a collection. When I wrote about the Fordite dialed Arc II two years ago, I talked about how that watch had unlocked something in my mind about ways in which brands can push design envelopes without crossing into five figure territory. The Arc II represents a kind of approachable avant-garde that clicked with me to such an extent that instead of being part of a broad spectrum of weird watches that I’m on a constant hunt to experience, it actually solidified my taste. 

We should all, of course, reserve the right to change our minds from time to time, but wearing the Arc II over these last few years I feel like I have a better understanding of what I’m drawn to as a collector, and that’s reflected in the current makeup of my collection. Specifically, the use of color and commanding, interesting case architecture have become attributes that I find draw me in again and again. Even more so when those elements combine to form something that feels futuristic, sci-fi influenced, or ultra technical. Many of my favorite recent watch releases from brands like H. Moser, Speceone, and Aera incorporate these ideas, whether through an unexpected shape, the creative use of lume, or a confidence inspiring wrist presence. The Arc II, for me, does all that and more.

The Tiger Sh’arc is part of the brand’s “Experimental” line, which they’ve introduced to test out new ideas in a limited way before moving them to the collection more broadly. It borrows from crowdfunding models in that a relatively small deposit is required at the start of the process to hold a watch, and Arcanaut provides updates along the way as to the progress, including the inevitable changes and adjustments that need to be made. The Tiger Sh’arc was introduced along with the Bonehead, a watch defined primarily by its highly textured, fully lumed dial. When I got the email announcing these two projects I knew right away I wanted to back one of them, and it was a genuinely difficult decision to pick which one. Ultimately, my decision came down to the unique case Arcanaut had planned for the Tiger Sh’arc. 

While the Tiger Sh’arc shares a case shape with every other Arc II, they’ve made a radical change in materials. Composed of a zirconium titanium composite (Zircuti, for short), the dark gray material has the distinctive wave pattern often associated with Mokume-gane, the Japanese metalworking technique that produces a result that resembles natural wood grain. Arcanaut micro-blasts the case which gives it a surprisingly smooth texture with some sheen, and those Zircuti waves take on an almost three dimensional quality. 

As much as I’m enamored with the Fordite dial project and all of the other experimental dial making happening at Arcanaut, I feel like the case is the secret sauce that makes the Arc II resonate with me. It’s 40.5mm in diameter and about 49mm from lug to lug, but wears a lot “shorter” because of the way the lugs are chopped at each end. I also love the shape – catching a glimpse of the case in profile is one of my favorite ways to enjoy the Arc II. It has a beautiful arch to it that’s also ergonomic and makes it incredibly comfortable to wear. After seeing a variety of cool Arc IIs come to market with unusual dials all featured in the same steel case, having the opportunity to own a case in another material (and an uncommon one at that) won me over. 

The Tiger Sh’arc’s dial is made from solid silver, and while it doesn’t have the electricity or straight up weirdness of the Fordite pieces or some of the other experimental Arc IIs, it still has plenty of character. Viewed up close, or under magnification, the dial’s subtle texture and inherent warmth is revealed. It’s complemented by strops of lume on the perimeter that glow about as brightly as any lume compound in any watch that I own. 

In my mind, there’s something appealing about owning both of these Arcanauts together. They feel like opposing personalities, yet both are still very much in the spirit of the brand. The Fordite dial is psychedelic, pure creativity. It’s a summery, fun, and attention grabbing. The Tiger Sh’arc, by contrast, is sober and meticulous. It’s like an alternate-universe dress watch version of the Arc II. It’s darker, and more subdued. But all of its components work together to create something that is challenging and rewarding. 

When I bought the Arc II Fordite, I got a lot of questions from watch collector friends and enthusiasts about how practical a watch like this would be to wear on a regular basis. With two Arc IIs in the collection, I can report that I wear both of them quite frequently. I’d say a week doesn’t go by where I don’t decide to wear one for at least a day. Again, to me it goes back to the case. It’s just a great fit for my wrist and, to put very simply, I think it looks awesome. And while I stand by my assertion from a few years ago that I don’t have any real legibility concerns with the marker-less Fordite version, there are obvious benefits to having minute markers on the Tiger Sh’arc. Specifically, it’s a whole lot easier to set the correct time when starting it up from a dead stop. 

That brings me to my one gripe about the Arc II. These watches both run on an automatic Soprod movement. The movement itself is completely fine, but because Arcanaut uses what they refer to as a “Pentablock” crown that is rectangular in shape and sits flush to the case, the movement can’t be manually wound from the first (or any) position. Instead, to get the watch running, you have to give the movement a shake. 

The issue you’ll sometimes run into here is that if, like me, you tend to take your watch off while sitting at your desk during the day, or you put your Arc II on from a dead stop later in the day, you might not wind it enough through your own physical activity to keep it going for as long as you’d like. I’ve never had one of these watches stop while it was on my wrist, but I’ve definitely seen them deplete themselves of their power reserve overnight. That’s a little annoying, and I tend to think the tradeoff, which is the streamlined and very Scandinavian design of the case wall and crown, is worth it. But I’d love to see Arcanaut engineer a solution that doesn’t compromise on the look while giving us an option to wind the watch by hand. 

Minor complaint about the movement aside, I remain completely won over by Arcanaut through multiple years, and multiple watches. I’ve written before about how as I’ve gotten deeper into the hobby, it’s become just as important to identify with the people who make your watch as it is to like the watch itself. The team at Arcanaut feel like kindred spirits in the way they embrace experimentation and approach watchmaking. I’m still leery of over-indexing on a single brand in a collection that by its nature will have inherent limits, but if exceptions can be made, Arcanaut is a contender. Arcanaut