Watch spotting .....

There was lots of watch spotting when I was on holiday. Some more interesting then others... :)

The Laco display at Red Army Watches in Pavilion Kuala Lumpur. I have to admit, the selection is awesome.

Azimuth Mr. Roboto R2 at the same shop as the Laco. I have to admit that I have always like the design of the watch. Maybe one day....

A nice selection of Omega Speedmaster at Pacific Time Watch Co in Bangsar Shopping Center. 

Nooka Limited Edition watches in Borders in Bangsar Village 2. Got to love the Zub Zinc design.

The new Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical in Hang Thai Watch in Bangsar Village. I like the watches.

Watch photography

Change of background but still the same angle. Next to experiment with angles and perhaps moving to outdoor shots with natural lights. 

The Hamilton Geneve 6bb watch.

Reflection due to the tropic crystal.

Something from 74.

Hamilton iPad World Time application

Hamilton has launched an application for the iPad. I was looking for a world time application for the iPad when I found this application. It is available free from Hamilton. The  application is (I believe) in Spanish. But it is not a problem as I only need the world time display.

The main display. There are 6 watches displaying the world time. You can't change the watches as they are fixed. The watches are the Jazzmaster Slim, the Ventura, the Khaki Field, the Railroad, the Pulsomatic (which I was so tempted to get when I was in Japan) and the Khaki X-Landing.

The cities display are also fixed, one city per time zone. All together, there are 24 cities to choose from. 

You can also view a timeline of Hamilton history in the application.

You can also read about the watches used to display the world time. Just click on the 'i' button and the watch specifications is displayed. In the photograph below, you can read all about the Jazzmaster Slim watch.

All about the Ventura.

Photographs: Hamilton

Overall, an interesting application.

Hamilton Time Player

This is a new novelty from Hamilton. The Time Player is a very unique watch, not the fact that it can tell the time in 4 timezones, but the fact that the individual timezones can move about in the watch. Just have a look at the watch below. The does remind me of the sliding puzzle I had when I was a child.

It is pretty cool. To move the individual timezone, you have to remove the 'H' piece on the upper left and the rest of the pieces can move about the longitude or latitude. The orange counter is for the local time and is colour coded to the 'HAMILTON' counter. The green counter is for New York, the red, for Tokyo and lastly yellow for Dubai. 

To set the time, you will have to move the counter (which you want to set) to the center of the watch. You can use any of the 4 crown to adjust the time. Once it is set, you can set the time for the other counters (by placing it in the center). The center piece, look at the photograph below, has a lever in the center to facilitate removal of the piece.

Look at the set of photographs below and you can see how the individual counter move about the watch.

A closer view of the central piece.

Photographs: Hamilton

I think it is a cool watch. However the fact that the other timezones are fixed, is a bit of a bummer. The watch is big coming in at 48 by 42 mm. It is good that the case is made of titanium, for stainless steel would render the watch pretty heavy.

The basic specifications:

Functions: hours and minutes, 4 timezone

Case: titanium, 48 x 42 mm

Movement: quartz E 01.701

Crystal: sapphire

Water resistant: 5 ATM

The watch is a limited edition watch and is available exclusively at Hamilton Labs. For more information:

Hamilton

N. Hoolywood X Hamilton Military watch

The Japanese label N. Hoolywood has collaborated with Hamilton to produce the Khaki Field Mechanical N. Hoolywood Special watch. This watch was produced for N. Hoolywood 2009 Spring/ Summer Collection. I suspect the watches are long sold out, but you never know. The watch retails for about USD 1,060. It was sold via the Mister Hollywood store in Japan. I believe the watch is a limited run of 500 pieces and it is serialised.

So why am I writing about this watch? Well there are some interesting aspect of the watch that I like. The watch itself is cased in a black stainless steel case, PVD I suspect. It comes with a black and white dial and comes with a black nylon strap. This is where it gets interesting. If you look at the photographs of the watch (above), you will notice that the second hand balance has the old Hamilton 'H' logo. I don't think that this is used in the standard Khaki Field Mechanical watches offered by Hamilton. I wish it will be introduced sometime in the future.

The other things are the blackened 12 Hour numeral hour index markings and the strap. The strap is based on the NATO design but different in that the spring bars are held to the one piece strap by two loops. The two loops are attached to the one piece nylon strap. So it is unlike the usual NATO strap that loops through the top spring bar, behind the watch and loop again over the bottom spring bar. This can be seen in the photographs below.

The basic specification of this watch:

Movement: ETA 2804 and winding movement

Function: hours, minutes, seconds and date

Crystal: sapphire

Water resistant: 10 ATM

Photographs: arknets

Hamilton Ventura

This year Hamilton will be launching some new watches in the Ventura range. The ventura watch will be 50 this year. As such, Hamilton has decided to launch 2 (3?) new ventura watch. The first is a quartz model, akin to the original Ventura as made famous by Elvis in 1961 when he wore it in the movie 'Blue Hawaii'. The second is an automatic version of the watch. It will carry the ETA 2824-2 movement. It will have a window in the dial to let the sun shine on to the movement. It will be water resistant rated to 5 ATM, while the quartz is rated to 3 ATM.

Evidently there is a third model, the Ventura XXL. This watch will be rendered in Gunmetal PVD and have a perforated dial. The XXL will also spot a rubber band as compared to leather for the normal Ventura. I believe the normal automatic is called the 50th Anniversary Ventura and the other is called the Ventura XXL. The XXL will be 42 mm in size (original 36 mm) and will be produced for only 1 year.

The Ventura watch was also made famous when it appeared in MIB movie.

For more information:

www.hamiltonwatch.com

The 50th Anniversary Ventura.

The Ventura Automatic 50th Anniversary.

The Ventura XXL

Photographs: Hamilton

Hamilton GG-W-113

In recent months, I have gotten myself badly bitten with military watches. It is indeed an interesting read and an interesting subject. But why military watches and why issued watches and not new watches? Well I like the history attached to the watches. There are many types of military issued watches, from very expensive ones to the common field watches. I am collecting (trying) to collect field watches or a representation of the available issued field watches.

So here is my first military watch, the Hamilton GG-W-113. I got this watch off WUS. The Orsa military watch that appeared in an earlier review is a homage to this watch.

This watch is manufactured to the GG-W-113 specification (6/6/1967). Companies that produced watches under this specification for military issue includes Benrus, Waltham and Marathon. The GG-W-113 watches have been issued to the American Air Force (USAF) since the Vietnam war.

General Specifications:

Function: Hour, minutes and seconds, 24 hour indicator

Case: Parkerized steel

Movement: 17 jewel ETA 2750, Hamilton cal. 649 hand wind hacking movement

Dimensions: Diameter: 34 mm, lug width: 18 mm, height: 11 mm

This is a simple watch as can be seen for the photographs. The dial is black. Although the dial has the 12 hour and 24 hour markers, the dial does not look busy. The hour index markers are luminous. The hands are also luminous and that includes the second hand. The lume on this watch have aged well and is even across the dial and hands. I just love the patina.

The watch is fitted with a hand winding Swiss made ETA 2750 hacking movement. The hacking movement allows for precise synchronization of the watch to a known source of time. According to what I have read, some movement will have the H.W. Co. (Hamilton Watch Co) cal 649 signature on the movement. And some are unsigned.

The watch was issued with a black nylon band. Some were issued with the olive drab band. Mine is fitted with a new Maratac black band. I guess the original band is long gone.

The watch is pretty thick, but this is attributed by the high crystal fitted. Images on the Internet shows both high and low crystal fitted on this watch. The low crystal is made by Stella and is the wedge ledge low dome crystal type. The high crystal is the Stella WRA style crystal (Other manufactures include GS? and Sternkreuz?). Also it is believed that some of these watches were issued with armored crystal.

This watch comes in 2 case design, the one-piece case (earlier issue) and two-piece design (later issue). This watch being reviewed is the one-piece design version. The case is made of corrosion resistant steel (parkerized?). It is 34 mm in diameter and measures 41mm lug to lug. Servicing these watches is possible but best left to the professional as access to the movement on the one-piece design is via removal of the crystal.

The watch comes with fixed lugs, hence the use of a one-piece band.

The crown is non screw down crown. It is 5 mm in diameter and is big compared to the case.The crown has 2 position, the first is for winding and the second for adjustment of the hands. The large crown is wonderful to use and pulling out the crown for adjustment is easy. The crown is unsigned.

The military markings are on the case back. The markings:

WRIST WATCH

GG-W-113

FED STOCK NO 6645-00-066-4279

MFG PART NO 39886

CONT NO GS-OWS-51982

DATE JUNE 82

SERIAL NO 736736

US

The second line the is the model number.

The third line is the Federal Stock No. From the MIL-W-46374 Information site:

"This is known as the "FSN" (Federal Stock No.) on older watches or the "NSN" from 1975 until the present. This code begins with the four-digit FSC (Federal Supply Classification) code 6645 that designates "Time Measuring Instruments". Every watch issued since the 1950’s, as well as stop watches, clocks, timers, etc., carries this designation incorporated into its NSN.

The National Stock Number (NSN), has a two number "country code" following the FSC "6645" on the National Stock Number (NSN). So a newer (1975 and later) NSN would read, "6645-00-952-3767", but an older FSN for a similar watch would read, "6645-952-3767". This two-digit country code is formally known as the NATO code for the National Codification Bureau (NCB). All US issues have either a 00 or 01 country code in this spot. Examples of other country codes that might appear on military issue watches are: 21 for Canada, or, 99 for the UK.

The final set of seven numbers called the National Item Identification Number (NIIN), designates the specific item. This is similar to what is known as an SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) in the civilian retail world. The NIIN designates a particular item usually required to be made under a specific military specification (although not always) and adding specific requirements of its own. For example, the NIIN 066-4279 designates watches made under various specifications but limited to watches that hack and have a high quality movement with 15 jewels or more.

The NSN and FSN are important to collectors of issue watches because they provide more specific information about the quality of the watch in question than the mil spec alone."

The forth line is the Hamilton part number.

The fifth line is the contract award number. This is an order number for the purchase of the watch by the U.S. Department of Defense.

The sixth line the date of manufacture.

The seventh line is the watch serial number. I like my serial number.

The last line, US - United States.

I like this watch. Although this watch is 34 mm, it does not wear small. It is light and very comfortable. The minimalist design is wonderful to look at and reading the time is easy.