Vintage Watches

Hamilton introduced its first wristwatch in 1917. This watch was 0-sized 17-jewel 983 movement originally designed for woman's pendent watches. The introduction of the Hamilton 0-sized wristwatch was the start of a line of wristwatches that included some of the finest American wristwatches. Some of the most collectible early Hamilton wristwatches include: The Byrd, The Cambridge, The Coronado, The Glendale, The Flintridge, The Langley, The Oval, The Pinehurst, The Piping Rock, The Rectangular, The Spur, The Square Enamel, and The Tonneau. Many models came in solid gold and gold filled cases.

And thus the company started making wrist watches in the 1910s. Most of these early creations were plain and of simple designs, with ordinary model names that simply indicated the shapes of the cases like the "Square", the "Tonneau", the "Barrel", and the likes.

In 1929, however, the company got lucky. It suddenly came out with three models which were surprisingly stunning and elegant in their design and even today are considered as some of the most collectible and sought after models in the world. They are the Piping Rock, the Spur, and the Coronado. All three of these were magnificent pieces of solid gold-cased watches which proudly featured enameled bezels.

Since then to about the mid 1950s were the times what we call as Hamilton's "golden years". During the '20s and early '30s, the watches took on more glamorous and classic names like the Oakmont, the Flintridge, the Meadowbrook and so forth. Around the mid-'30s, the company came out with an attractive plan and decided to name most of its watches after men's names.

During it’s time, Hamilton made some of the world’s best watches which still hold a special status among the buyers around the world.
Although the list is quite long, some of the masterpieces are mentioned below:
•    Piping Rock, Coronado and Spur.
•    Oval and Flintridge.
•    Rutledge and Cambridge which come in platinum cases.
•    Otis is a reversible watch which flips open to close.
•    Seckron is the duo-dial doctor's watch.
•    The Coral (rose) Gold watch.
•    Bomb timer can be mounted on a turret within the bombardier’s compartment. It calculates the duration between bomb drop and detonation. These  can be converted to a wrist watch with the addition of a leather strap.
•    Brooke was the Hamilton's first asymmetrical watch.
•    Flight I and II are asymmetrical watches containing mechanical movements. The former is solid 14K gold while the latter is gold-filled.

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