Watch Review: Affordable Mechanicals: sub-$300 Range: Hamilton Field Khaki Hand Wind H69419363 Officer Handwinding

With the entry point of Swiss-made mechanical watches approaching - and often well exceeding - the $1000, many newcomers to realm of the watch enthusiasts must limit themselves to Asian-made or vintage Swiss models if their budget only goes as high as a few hundred dollars.  For those individuals, the entry-level brands of the Swatch Group, such as Tissot and Hamilton, offer some of the best value propositions on the market today.

The watch on review today is perhaps the finest and least expensive example in Hamilton's present collection:  the Field Khaki Hand Wind (currently listed as the Officer Handwinding on Hamilton's website), reference number H69419363.  Its simple three-hand design reflects a functionalist and spartan outlook that meshes well with its military aesthetic.  At 38mm in diameter, it is well positioned as an understated timepiece that could be easily dressed up with a leather strap or matching bracelet (more on the latter below).  Its 20mm lug width ensures that it is compatible with a wide range of aftermarket straps, and the drilled lug holes are an increasingly rarefied feature that makes strap changes a breeze and further cements the watch's function-first aesthetic.  The watch comes in a black dial and an olive drab dial, the latter of which can appear black or grey depending on the light and surroundings.  

Notable at this price point is the watch's domed sapphire crystal, whose charming lack of anti-reflective coating makes it evoke the vintage charm of actual military watches that used plastic or plexiglass crystals, while offering the modern scratch resistance of sapphire.  Its movement is an ETA 2804-2, which is the most recent manual-wind version of ETA's workhorse 28XX lines of movements.  For those looking to understand the anachronistic appeal of a mechanical watch in a world where every cellphone can tell you the time, the combination of sweeping seconds hand and daily ritual of winding the watch to maintain its 38-hour power reserve offers the full experience at perhaps the lowest price attainable for a Swiss mechanical watch.

As pictured above, I opted to dress up the watch with its matching bracelet (reference number H605.694.101, available direct from Hamilton for $114 plus shipping at the time of writing).  I found that the solid-end-link bracelet really completes the watch by matching seamlessly with its satin metal finish, and as versatile as the watch is with a wide range of straps, uniting the watch with its bracelet makes it feel suddenly whole.

The Hamilton Field Khaki Hand Wind H69419363 (aka Officer Handwinding) is available on Amazon for less than $300.

Specifications:

Diameter: 38mm

Lug Width: 20mm

Dial Color: Olive Drab

Crystal: Sapphire

Movement: ETA 2804-2 (manual wind, approximately 38-hour power reserve)

Bracelet: H605.694.101 ($114 + shipping direct from Hamilton)

Recommendation:  If you're a fan of minimalism, military aesthetics, handwound movements, and perhaps the best bang-for-buck current production Swiss timepiece on the market today, do yourself a favor and pick up the H69419363.

Watches to Wear Returns in November!

WtW will return with fortnightly blog posts every other Monday, starting November 3rd.

There's a whole lot on the way, so stay tuned!

Accessory Review: Pocket Watch Glass Display Dome with Walnut Base & Silver hook (It's On Amazon)

After choosing the Marathon TSAR as the latest occupant of my watch box, I went searching for a storage solution for the pocket watches that I've been handed down and the one modern example - an Orient CDD00001W, one of the only modern pocket watches I know of that features a sapphire crystal - I keep on hand for occasions where a wrist-bound watch simply won't do.  Most boxes designed to store pocket watches have capacities far too large for my needs - usually in the 10 to 12 pocket watch range - so I went with a couple of single-watch glass cases from Amazon.

At just under $30, they're a reasonable storage and display option.  I keep the aforementioned Orient in one, and my great-grandfather's vintage Omega pocket watch in another.  It's a solid choice that keeps the watch well protected and nicely displayed, though getting the watch on the hook can be a little fidgety.  I highly recommend it to anyone who has a pocket watch or two and wants a good place to keep them safe.

Watch Review: Marathon TSAR on U.S. Great Seal Bracelet

Spend enough time on any of the usual watch forums - especially where dive watches are discussed - and sooner or later you'll come across the Marathon Search-and-Rescue series of watches.  Marathon is a Canadian company that supplies Swiss-made watches to the U.S. and Canadian governments, and which has garnered a reputation for solid, purpose-built tool watches for those who value function first, form second.  As previous mainstay tool watches like the Rolex Submariner and the Omega Seamaster venture farther into fashion - some might say "bling" - territory, the backlash against that trend has led some dive watch enthusiasts to seek out the classic tool watch functionality and aesthetic from other sources.

Marathon's SAR series comes in several flavors.  The TSAR is a quartz-powered watch with a sensible 41mm diameter.  The GSAR is its automatic-powered - by an ETA 2824, specifically - doppelganger.  The JSAR is an oversized version at 47mm.   And the CSAR tops out the line as the automatic Valjoux 7750-powered chronograph.

Given the playing field, my choice among Marathon's offerings was an easy one.  The TSAR combines the ruggedness of an ideal dive watch with the better (though not impervious) shock resistance and low maintenance of a quartz movement.  Despite its chunkiness, its 41mm diameter is very restrained in a world of 45mm+ monstrosities.  The TSAR is only available on a rubber strap that - like most "regular" length straps on the market today - proved too long for its innermost hole to accommodate a 6" wrist.  Even had the strap fit, though, I still would have opted to replace it with the very solid matching bracelet that Marathon offers emblazoned with either the U.S. great seal, a U.S. Marines seal, or the Canadian maple leaf.  Given that the TSAR version I picked up features the "U.S. Government" notation usually found on government contract Marathons, I figured the U.S. great seal bracelet would provide a nice counterbalance and round out the tool watch aesthetic of the TSAR.

The TSAR maintains all of the tool watch features that other formerly function-over-form watch models have shed in the pursuit of fashion:  drilled lug holes, a knurled crown, and a diver's bezel that is legible and functional from the full zero to 60 minutes.  The minute hand is just long enough to line up with the minute indices, and the tritium illumination is bright but not obnoxiously so under darkened conditions.

For me, the Achilles' heel of a quartz movement is how the sudden need for a battery replacement can leave you with a dead watch at the most inconvenient times.  The movement employed by the TSAR is one of several I've come across that fends off this contingency by including an end-of-life indicator that, in theory, should cause the movement to advance in 4-second increments when the battery needs changing.  With that mechanism, maintenance of the watch becomes a far easier and predictable proposition than another dime-a-dozen quartz or even a mechanical movement.

Shopping around for the greatest deal available at the time, I snagged the TSAR and its bracelet for $707 all together.  You might be able to find it for less depending on market conditions at the time, or if you are willing to go used and come across a solid example.  How ever you get your hands on it, I highly recommend it.

Watch Radar: Marathon TSAR (Tritium Search and Rescue) Diver

Following my abortively brief ownership of a Bathys 100F Auto, I decided that the watch that will eventually fill the "dive watch" role in my watch box should ideally have a quartz movement.  Aside from being more accurate across the board and slightly more shock resistant, a quartz movement would also require less unscrewing of the inevitable screw-down crown.  I'd hoped to acquire one of Bathys's next batch of 100F Quartzes, but a quick exchange with John Patterson revealed that the current ETA is well into 2014, if not later.  A year-or-two-away ETA has been the standard line from Bathys as to the quartz 100F for several years now (I think I've been asking since 2010), I finally decided to set aside my longstanding goal of adding a "Hawaii" brand to my watch box, in favor of the tool watch of choice for North American governmental agencies:  Marathon's TSAR.  Sensibly sized (at roughly 41-42mm wide) and as solid as 316L steel gets, the watch itself and its bracelet are currently en route in separate packages.

Watch Review: The Affordable (Under $30) Casio MTP-1239D-2A

Shortly after acquiring the Casio MTP-1183A-2A, I discovered its day-date variant, the MTP-1239D-2A.  I initially dismissed it as I presumed it would be largely the same as the 1183A, but a picture of its bracelet revealed a push-button clasp as opposed to the friction clasp on the 1183A.  The idea that I might be able to swap out the 1183A's friction clasp for a push button made me decide to take the plunge and pick up the 1239D.

When it arrived, the first thing I noticed was the blue of the dial.  While the 1183A's dial is a muted, almost violet shade, the 1239D's is closer to the vibrant blue I've seen in Seiko's SARB series and approaches the "electric" blue of the reference 2253.80 Omega Seamaster I used to own.   Looking at the image above, you might also notice that the positioning of the 12 o'clock indices is slightly more spaced on the 1239D's dial than the 1183A's.  I think it provides stronger proportionality to the entire layout.

The bracelet also yielded interesting differences upon closer inspection.  While virtually identical at first glance to the 1183A bracelet, its links are incompatible.  Moreover, the bracelet's finishing is more of a matte, frosted finish than the brushed finish on the 1183A.  Most surprising however was that the curve of the push-button clasp was less curved than the 1183A's clasp, making the fit much more angular and less appealing on my 6" wrist.  That, coupled with what seems to my eye to be a better, more aesthetically pleasing finish on the 1183A's bracelet, led me to end up choosing the exact opposite combination I intended to when I first acquired the 1239D:  The 1239D's head combined with the 1183A's bracelet.

Because of my watch box rule, the 1183A has been displaced by the 1239D, albeit in a hybridized form.  The assembled package of 1183A bracelet and 1239D watch head costs about $45, which still clocks in at less than the vast majority of watches out there.  And either the date-only 1183A or the day-date 1239D would make a fine single purchase, with the considerations raised above, at $20 and $25, respectively.

Watch Accessory Review: Wolf Designs 4583029 5 Piece Watch Storage Box

Watch boxes occupy an interesting spot in the realm of watch accessories.  At some point (usually after collecting more than 2-3 watches), they become something of a necessity for those looking to keep their collection in some semblance of order.  But many such boxes tend to either occupy stratospheric price points (when the box costs more than most of the watches it houses, something is amiss), or pair reasonable pricing with dubious construction or materials (in particular, an anonymous model I picked up from eBay for about $40 had lining and watch pillows that started to disintegrate the moment I touched them).  The sweet spot that couples reasonable price with reasonable quality can be elusive.

After paring down my watch collection from well over the ten slots allocated in my previous watch box (a now-discontinued Fossil model), and confirming that Fossil's current watch box offerings 1) cost over $100 each (straying into costing-more-than-the-watches territory where Fossil is concerned) and 2) featuring no less than eight slots, I decided to venture onto Amazon and see if I could find another brand that would hit the reasonable-price, reasonable-quality sweet spot.

I'd heard of Wolf Designs before, but their "retail" price point positions them squarely outside reasonable price territory.  Fortunately, most retailers that carry them offer the boxes at substantial discounts, Amazon included, making them a stronger value proposition and worth looking into.  With a slim collection in mind, I chose their 5-watch offering, available on Amazon for roughly $50.  (Not cheap, but not quite exorbitant, either.)

The quality of materials is more than adequate, on par if not slightly better than those used in the now-discontinued Fossil box.  The slots feature a slight incline that allows the watches to rest naturally at an attractive angle when nestled within.  The display window is glass rather than plastic, giving it a more solid feel.  I prefer watch boxes with transparent lids as they allow solar-powered watches (such as the Citizen Eco-Drive line and many higher-end Casios) to take on light even while the box is closed.

The locking mechanism is simple and functional, but ultimately of limited protective value; any determined thief need only shatter the glass lid to gain access to the watches within, or simply take the entire box.  I tend to leave mine unlocked by default.

All in all, this is about as nice a watch box as can be had at around the $50 price point - which is hardly a steal, but an acceptable value given the watch box market.  For those looking to maintain a smaller (by WIS standards) collection, the Wolf Designs 4583029 5 Piece Watch Storage Box is probably the box to get.