Reply With QuoteIt’s a handsome watch. Nice and simple and a good size. Brendan has worked on one of my watches and I’d have no hesitation dealing with him again.
I recently picked up a couple of watches on eBay, fully aware that they would need varying degrees of work to bring them back to a usable condition.
The first is this LL Bean 9219 Field Watch. I have a real liking for Field Watches, and this is a model that I have been after for some time.
There is some good information on the LL Bean watches on the web, such as this article that compares the various models to the different iterations of James Bond:
http://www.roverhaven.com/the-rover-...nd-equivalents
My model is the straightforward and relatively commonplace 9219, fitted with a robust, hand-winding and hackable ETA 2750 movement. The watch is very similar in looks to the CWC G10 that I am sure most are familiar with, though at 33mm the Hamilton case size is fractionally smaller than the G10’s 35mm.
As advertised the watch was fitted with an expandable stainless steel bracelet, and the photos showed that whilst it was in generally good condition the crystal was badly scratched and the hands were losing their lume.
One thing I am unsure of is the originality or otherwise of the crown, as I have seen a mixture of both Hamilton-branded and plain crowns on supposedly original watches.
On receiving the watch it certainly matched the description and photos, and a quick wind of the movement showed it kept remarkably good time. However I doubted the watch had been serviced recently…or perhaps ever, so I got in touch with Brendan and asked him if he would be kind enough to have a look at it for me.
Brendan was already in possession of another watch of mine that needs far more work and will – hopefully – be the subject of a future post, but in the meantime he kindly agreed to do the necessary work on the Hamilton. A week after telling me that the Hamilton had reached the top of the pile of watches to work on, Brendan got in touch.
As well as a service it turned out that the watch needed a new mainspring and gasket to go along with the new crystal and the re-luming of the hands. Once the work was completed Brendan dispatched the watch back to me.
It is keeping excellent time, as to be expected, and to my eyes the re-luming has transformed the watch – the lume hour markers on the dial had aged nicely to a pale shade of green which Brendan carefully matched using a blend of new green and white lume. The watch is now shod with a khaki Atelier Pell leather nato strap, and is gaining many glances of admiration as I sit here and type.
Many thanks to Brendan, once again, for the great service.
It’s a handsome watch. Nice and simple and a good size. Brendan has worked on one of my watches and I’d have no hesitation dealing with him again.
Great work by Brendan
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
Lovely, and well worth the effort to bring it back to life.
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Hamilton make attractive field watches. I have four: WW2 USN, RAF 6B, Khaki Automatic 9721 and LL Bean 9445. I'd quite like to lay my hands on an LL Bean branded 9721 automatic.
Myron over on MWR is an LL Bean Hamilton aficionado
https://www.mwrforum.net/forums/show...hlight=ll+bean
ps. Sorry was being dim, Roverhaven and Myron are the same!
Last edited by BillyCasper; 25th October 2019 at 13:23.
Really nice watch WG and a great restoration job. I’ve seen these before as small field watches really appeal to me and the LL Bean story is interesting.
I hope you’ll find it practical to wear.
I love these little Hamiltons, I have a US Army issued version from 1988 that is still going strong. Its nice to see it back up, running and looking good.
Many thanks all.
Regarding practicality of wear I was a little concerned whether, even though I wear a number of vintage dress watches, I would find the 33mm case too small. However as so often these concerns were based more on the perception of the the watch rather than the actuality of wearing it.
When on the wrist - particularly on the Atelier Pell leather Nato which has more heft than a regular canvas/nylon Nato - the watch is very comfortable. In comparison to the watches I frequently wear (Omega Great White, a 5513, CWC G10, PRS-18Q, numerous Seiko Divers and a number of vintage dress watches form part of the rotation) the Hamilton is of course smaller, but doesn't feel any less of a watch because of it. In fact it is in many ways a pleasure not to have a great lump of steel weighing on the wrist, particularly given that much of my work involves typing on a laptop.
Here is the Hamilton side-by-side with a G10, where both the similarities and differences can be appreciated:
Interestingly when comparing it with the G10 I can see pro's and con's to both. I far prefer the Hamilton's finer text for the numerals and the more delicate shape to the hands, although that probably speaks more to the intended purpose of the G10 where reading it at night would be easier. On the other hand the G10's railroad track minute marking and crown guards are more to my preference.
It looks great and I’m glad you will wear it. I am wearing a 30mm field watch today with a Dennison waterproof case - all power to the little ‘uns.
Photos??Originally Posted by alfat33
Just one of my Helvetias. In yesterday’s Friday thread. The case is basically an Aquatite, although without that branding.
Last edited by alfat33; 26th October 2019 at 08:18.
Helvetia + binoculas = £?
£ /- d of course.
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Haha, I think about £100 in total. The Addiator = priceless ;).
The binoculars are Air Ministry issued from 1941. I started a thread about them in May, which has some pictures of them and their case at the end.
https://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.p...ls-please-help
Sorry for hijacking your thread WG. I could tell you what kind of field mission needs a waterproof watch, a mechanical calculator and binoculars, but the Offiicial Secrets Act prevents me.
Not hijacked at all - that’s a lovely watch and, naturellement, a Helvetia.
Thank you also for the link to the thread on the Wray binoculars. I have not been visiting the site so much recently, and that’s exactly the kind of thread that I love to read. Did the trail go cold on more info?
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Your thread on the Wray binoculars prompted me to go out to the shed and retrieve a pair that I bought decades ago when I was more into the Sport of Kings.
They are 6x Zeiss binoculars dating from 1917, with an inscription for what looks like L.I. (or possibly Lt. ?) Wade, of the Hampshire Royal Engineers.
Like your Wrays, these have individual focusing for each eyepiece. The glass is still good, albeit a little cloudy, but nothing that a visit to OptRep wouldn't put right.
I must do some research to see if I can find out any more about L I Wade.
Last edited by willie_gunn; 26th October 2019 at 10:13.
Great restoration work from , Brendan . It's a lovely looking watch .
I haven’t found out any more and then got distracted by a new watch arrival with a story to follow up on.
Your Zeiss binoculars are great. I read up quite a bit about WW1 binoculars and realised that I could easily be pulled down the slippery slope, so I’m trying to stick with the Wrays.
Last edited by alfat33; 26th October 2019 at 19:29.
I found these 1st WW binoculars 40 years ago at Camden Market. They are so powerful you really need a tripod. Bone eyepieces and silver inlay. They could do with a clean but I am reluctant to try to dismantle them:
PS: No animals were harmed during the repair of your Hamilton.
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Very nice!
There is something pleasantly tactile about old binoculars, as well as the intriguing consideration of everything that might have been looked at through them.
Although I have not personally used them, both OptRep and Glasgow Binocular Repair get consistently good reviews on birding and other optical websites. I would happily entrust mine to either facility.
Thanks WG, I may well send them for cleaning although the image was clear enough to see Kahutek's comet back in the 70s and they clearly show four of Jupiter's moons and Saturn's rings when the lenses are cleaned. I'm afraid of the prisms being accidentally misaligned.
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