Yes, my current dream watch is a $20,000 Breitling in rose gold, but that’s not what I wear everyday.
My everyday watches are both Hamiltons, a fifty-year-old Hamilton GI-issue, military watch, worn mostly with a nylon NATO strap in OD green for the weekends , and an eighty-year-old Hamilton Webster, with a dark leather strap for wearing with suits and tweeds to work. The latter is an Art Deco-ish tonneau watch (meaning, the case is barrel-shaped, vaguely rectangular with a bulge in the middle) that I picked up without a strap, at a second-hand store for $65 in 1987. It has to be wound, which by modern standards is a frightful inconvenience, but it keeps perfect time and it looks good on my wrist without being overly ostentatious.
If I had an extra $650 that I wasn’t saving for a $20,000 Breitling, I would probably get this Hamilton Khaki watch…
It’s a direct descendent of all those hundreds of thousands of Hamiliton military watches produced since 1941, attractive, durable, manly, and ready to roll.
Like I said previously, I’m a man of simple, traditional tastes. Old fashioned watches and boxer shorts, that’s me.
I also wear a Hamilton Khaki. It was a present from my wife on our honeymoon. Nice watch and a mechanical wonder, but the only thing it has on a much cheaper watch is the sapphire crystal.
It’s going in for a regular service shortly and I bought a $30 Timex to wear instead. The craftsmanship isn’t the same. However the Timex’s modern quartz movement actually keeps better time.
Comment by Jeff the Baptist — August 22, 2013 @ 9:29 pm