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(More customer reviews)I recently became interested in the Hamilton brand of watches when, of all things, I was looking to puchase a piece from another brand. The particular model I was looking for was unavailable and in browsing at some of the dealer's other brands, I noticed some of the Hamilton pieces and tried a few on. Needless to say, I was hooked with some of their excellent looking watches. As a brand, Hamilton has quite a lot of appeal to me. Although I'm a watch collector and admire and enjoy fine watches, I have found of late that the prices for many previously excellent yet reasonably affordable swiss watches have become ridiculously inflated. It may make little sense to luxury watch buyers and regular watch lovers alike, but while I absolutely believe that spending some money on an excellent timepiece is a necessary investment for any serious man to make, I don't like the idea of the hobby becoming so ridiculously expensive that only a very select few of the super-rich can afford to own a fine mechanical timepiece. I like watches, and I guess I would like other people to enjoy them as well, which means that I'm a great believer in horology and watches themselves being accessible to the masses.
In researching the brand I discovered some things I liked quite a lot. First, Hamilton has a wonderful design sense that is both classy and understated (the American Classic line) on the one hand while also being innovative and cutting edge (the Khaki line), with new and bold designs. Second, the brand has American heritage but is now swiss owned, and the watches are swiss made, bringing all the heritage and fine watchmaking tradition of the swiss watchmaking industry. And third, the brand is still priced at what I consider to be levels that bear some relationship to reality. Hamilton consistenty offers high quality timepieces with all of the features and quality of craftsmanship one might expect from signficantly more expensive but not necessarily "better" brands. In snob-jeweller's terms, it would be regarded probably as an "entry-level" brand, but in real terms, this a brand making exquisite looking watches of very high quality indeed.
This particular model is from the American Classic line and is known as the Hamilton Jazzmaster Chrono Auto. The watch comes in several versions, and this particular version is generally only available in Europe, so is a little rarer in the US. The watch is an almost perfect combination of design and function, and is among one of the classiest, most beautiful looking mechanical chronographs (Americans would call it a "stop-watch") available from any luxury brand right now. What follows is a review of specifics of the characteristics of the watch that should help anyone interested in buying make a good decision.
Watch Case & crown -
The watch case is basically that part of the watch without the strap or bracelet; the part of the watch that holds the movement inside. The case size of this watch might be categorized as "big" at 42mm.The means the distance between the outer case at the 10 o'clock position to 4 o'clock position measures 42mm. But the watch "flares" out a little at the bottom and so will have a slightly larger bulge if viewed from straight above. The case design is beautiful, with both polished and brushed edges/surfaces, and has a nice, chunky thickness to it at somewhere in the region of 14-15mm. This means the watch has some height on the wrist, although it should fit comfortably under most shirt sleeves. The case is made of solid, high quality stainless steel that nevertheless doesn't feel oppressively heavy. In general, the size of watch means that it should probably be worn by shorter men with larger wrists, or by taller (around 6 foot) men generally, but this is only a general guideline, and depends on personal tastes. Some men, like my father, at 6'2", don't like large watches while friends of mine who are significantly shorter manage to get away with wearing a large watch. It all depends on personal tastes but as a rule, the watch would probably work best on someone with a good sized (but doesn't need to be huge) wrist. (Anywhere from 6.5/6.75 inches would be fine.)
The crown of the watch, which is the part of the watch used to set the hands and wind the watch, is among one of my favorite pieces. The crown here is grooved for easy gripping and best of all, it's nice and large, without being ridiculously so, like some new brands, (TW Steel, I'm looking at you.) A nice detail is that Hamilton has stamped the crown with a nice large "H", which is a nice piece of branding.
The watch is covered by slightly elevated, generally flat scratch resistance saphire crystal - which is a synthetic substance which nevertheless has near diamond hardness. The material is currently used on all high end swiss watches and is famously resistant to scratches. This means the crystal should remain steadfastly clean and unspoilt for many years, barring some serious accidents.
Dial & Hands -
The dial on this watch is a clean, flat black which nevertheless looks to have very fine, very beautiful striations striking out from the center toward the edges of the watch when looked at closely. The two major sub-dials at 9 and 3 are in a silver finish with very fine, hardly noticeable concentrentic circles radiating out from the center of each sub-dial. The 9 o'clock sub-dial is regular seconds hand, which is basically the main seconds hand of the watch itself, while the dial at the 3 o'clock position is a 30 minute totalizer or counter for the chronograph function. The very small sub-dial at 6 o'clock measures the accumulated hours up to a maximum of 12, and is quite attractive despite or perhaps because of it's small size. Due to that counter's smallness, the face of the watch achieves a nice symmetry which few chronographs ever tend to achieve. The normal sized date window is situated mid-way between the 4 and 5 o'clock positions and is a black numeral on a white background.
The hands on this watch are one of its best features, with a minute hand that is exquisitely extended right into the minute markers of the watch, something which again, very few watch companies tend to do. The general design of the hands are spear shaped, and each of the hands of the watch, with the exception of the deliberately designed small 12 hour counter, contains a fine strip of white material known as "super-luminova," which is a material designed to glow once exposed to light, with the purpose of making the watch readable in dark places or at night. There are applied arabic numbers at 12, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 o'clock positions, and applied markers in the shape of fine spear heads at the 1, 5, 7, and 11 positions. All of the markers are in a silver-like material which provides a very dramatic and classy contrast against the matte black background of the dial itself.
The watch doesn't appear to be coated with any anti-reflective coating, so that some reflections are visiible while reading the time from time to time. However, this isn't a major problem, as the watch face is so clear, and so beautiful that reading the time is a pleasure and very easy to do.
More problematic is the lack of significant amounts of super-luminova. Few watch manufacturers manage to get the right balance between aesthetics and functionality in designing the dial of a watch. In most cases, some sacrifices have to be made, and in automatic watch with no battery to provide "backlight" of some sort, super-luminova can be very helpful as a tool that improves the functionality of the watch by making it possible to be used at night. Unfortunately, Hamilton manages to put so little of the material on the watch hands and markers that I wondered whether the effort was worth it. The luminova (or "lume") as watch enthusiasts refer to it, on this model is barely adequate, so be prepared for very little glow if you wake up at 3 in the morning and need to know the time, and also for whatever glow there is not to last terribly long, although that's probably also true of most watches using the material.
That minor annoyance aside, overall, the dial & hands and case of this watch make it very distinctive. Overall, the watch screams sporting elegance and classic ruggedness, and with its size and width, gives the impression of a very masculine timepiece that suggests it's wearer is at once sophisticated but adventurous. Among some watch enthusiasts, arabic markers (the numbers on watch faces) tend to be looked down upon, but this is really a matter of personal taste. On this particular watch, the design is perfectly balanced and the watch projects a level of seriousness you want an expensive watch to do.
Movement -
The movement in this watch is the ETA owned Valjoux 7753, a closely related relative of the Valjoux 7750. The movement is a high quality chronograph movement used in brands ranging from Omega, to Beitling, Tag, Longines, IWC and a host of others. The movement has become ubiquitous due to its robustness and reliability. It tends to be very accurate, when produced at a high grade; not be very susceptible to changes of rate due to overnight/resting positioning; and to work well for a long period of time without the need for constant servicing. The 7753 tends to be slightly more exclusive than the 7750 version, which Hamilton also uses, and so is a little less ubiquitous. My own model has become deadly accurate after three days. Initially the watch was noticeably running a few seconds slow, but is now running spot on. A more accurate assessment can only be made after ownership for a longer period, but from initial assessments, the movement appears to be very reliable.
The 7753 movement has one quirk that takes a little getting used to. The quick set date...Read more›
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Product Description:
Brushed and polished stainless steel case, Sapphire crystal screw-in caseback, Black dial with silver subdials, Silvertone indices, Silvertone luminescent hands, Sweep second hand for the chronograph, Small seconds subdial at the 9 o'clock, chronograph minutes subdial at the 3 o'clock, chronograph hours subdial at the 6 o'clock, Date between the 4 and 5 o'clock, Brushed and polished stainless steel bracelet, Push-button deployment clasp, Sapphire crystal, Push/pull crown, Swiss automatic movement, Valjoux caliber 7753, Power reserve of 42 hours, Water resistance to 10 ATM/100 meters/330 feet, Case measurements are 42 mm in diameter x 15 mm thick, Bracelet measurements are 22 mm wide x 8 inches long.
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