1940’s Hamilton Milton

Hamilton began manufacturing and selling watches in Lancaster Pennsylvania back in 1892 when it bought the Keystone watch company which was facing bankruptcy. The company was named after James Hamilton, the owner of a vast amount of land (including what is now the city of Lancaster) that had been granted to him by William Penn, an English settler, Quaker and real estate developer who founded the province of Pennsylvania. The Milton featured here was manufactured when Hamilton was a watchmaking powerhouse in America producing 100% American made watches, but by 1966 Hamilton had acquired the Swiss watch manufacturer Buren and began utilising Swiss movements in production. Fast forward to today and Hamilton watches are still being manufactured, but now as a brand name of Swatch Group, the huge Swiss watch manufacturing company.

This particular Milton which was manufactured in the late 1940’s came in for a movement service and a bit of a spruce up.

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Omega SM300

Scuba diving became a huge leisure pursuit in the 1950’s and watch manufacturers were quick to offer timepieces designed to suit the activity. In 1953 Blancpain introduced the blueprint for future dive watches with it’s rotating “time elapsed” bezel, luminous dial and hands and screw down crown . Rolex were quick to follow in 1954 with their Submariner model and various other manufacturers followed suit soon after. In 1957 Omega debuted their offering the Seamaster 300 reference CK2913, along with it’s brothers the Railmaster and Speedmaster. The first generation Seamaster 300’s looked very distinctive with their broadarrow hands and narrow acrylic bezel.

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Seiko SKX007

Seiko’s SXK007 & 009’s are one of the companies most popular affordable dive watches and as such most collectors own or have tried one of these models at one time or another. They represent enormous value for money and are very popular in the modding community where different style dials, crystals, handsets, inserts even complete bezels can be bought and fitted to personalise it to your own taste. This particular example has been fitted with a domed crystal and thicker font insert.

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Elgé Genève super compressor

Elgé Genève watches were produced by the French manufacturer Ets Yola based in the large town of Annecy in the French Haut-Savoie region, which has a strong watchmaking tradition, in fact Annecy’s just over the Swiss border from Geneva. They were in business from the mid 1940’s until the early 1970’s and other Ets Yola brands comprised of Yola, Elga and Elgé. This particular example is a dive watch powered by the A Schild 1712 movement housed in an ESPA Super Compressor case. It’s in remarkable condition and the owner just wanted a full movement service, the lume examining and stabilising (it appeared a little fragile in the hands) and if possible the case made waterproof once more.

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Rolex Explorer II adjustment

One of the reasons I enjoy working on Rolex watches is the fact that in most cases inexperienced hands haven’t been inside trying to adjust or regulate due to a couple of factors. The first is the caseback design which needs the correct sized die to allow it to be opened, it can’t be achieved with a £2.99 pair of needle nosed pliers like a lot of traditional casebacks.  Secondly, once inside you then need a microstella adjusting tool to actually adjust the rate of the watch, there’s no regulating lever to prod back and forth with a blunt implement before slipping off and squashing the hairspring, you wouldn’t believe the amount of times I’ve had watches sent for regulation where this has clearly happened!

A friend of mine sent me this Rolex Explorer II for a check up which has been his daily wearer for the last 10 years or so. He works in engineering in a brewery and there’s been no pampering of this example – it genuinely leads the life of a tool watch.

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Omega Seamaster calibre 520

Omegas Seamaster range of watches needs little introduction to anyone with even just a passing interest in vintage wristwatches. Introduced in 1948 to coincide with the brand’s 100th anniversary the line is still being manufactured today, all be it unrecognisable from the first incarnations which were loosely based on watches made for the British military at the end of World War II. This example dates from around the late 1950’s and is a stainless steel cased example.

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Oris pointer

Oris have been making wristwatches in Hölstein Switzerland since 1904. They’ve been responsible for some iconic designs throughout that time, of note is the big crown pilots watch introduced in 1938 and of course the feature watch of this post (introduced in the same year), the pointer, which as the name suggests uses a hand to point to the date which is written around the periphery of the watches dial. This ladies example recently came in for a new crystal and a service and it typifies Oris’s pointer series of watches with its guilloche type ring beneath the numerals, it’s cathedral hands and crescent style date pointer hand.

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Seiko Gen 1

This Seiko 7A28-7120 chronograph came in for a full service, a new crystal and a seal change recently, it also had a problem with the chronograph minute counter which wasn’t working. More commonly referred to as the Seiko Gen 1 (generation 1) these were first issued by the MOD to British military pilots in October 1984 and weren’t replaced until November 1990. Seiko supplied a Gen 2 chronograph later on in the 1990’s. The Gen 1’s were also the first quartz powered chronographs issued by the MOD replacing the venerable mechanical Valjoux 7733 powered ones that were issued for the preceding decade or so. The MoD bought and issued a total of 11,307 Gen 1’s, which makes it one of the most popular issued military chronographs to date. This particular watch had been sent by the owner to Seiko UK for the work to be carried out but it was returned as they don’t carry the spare parts anymore, this was when it made its way to me. The movement has a crown at 8 and the start, stop and reset at 2, 4 and 10. The large seconds hand is the chronograph running seconds hand, the sub dial at three is the 1/10th second counter, the one at 9 is the minute counter and the one at 6 is the running seconds.

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