I’ll preface this post by saying there probably isn’t much that is novel here for regular forum members. I'm a relative newcomer to the world of wrist watches and very new to vintage watches. I thought this might be of interest to someone like me who was thinking of trying out a vintage watch but had a few concerns.

I currently own two vintage watches, a 1960’s Longines and a 1970’s Hamilton W10. I buy watches to wear but these two get worn in very different ways. The Longines I wear approximately 2-3 times per month for a few hours at a time. The Hamilton I’ve been wearing daily for the last three week and I’m going to focus on my experience with that watch.

After a couple of days of wear I developed three concerns, lume, water resistance and damage to the crystal. I started to think about selling the watch - and I love the design and how it looks on my wrist - and replacing it with the reissue, the Khaki Pilot Pioneer. Here is how I learned to live with and even appreciate these differences from my more modern timepieces.




Lume

The W10’s lume markers are very faint and fade quickly but there is still a little bit of glow from the hands. At first I found this a little disconcerting. I was used to going to bed with a glowing dial visible on my bedside locker. But the reality is I rarely if ever check my watch in the middle of the night as I’m a heavy sleeper. I also noticed that once my eyes were night adapted, I could read the hands. In fact by early morning the remaining Tritium glow was about the same as SL. Also the lume has aged fantastically so I’ve gone from being worried to being a fan



Water Resistance

This was a bigger concern for me. I like a daily wearer that is a go anywhere watch. For me 50m WR was a minimum and 100M preferred. It’s hard to find the exact water resistance of the W10 but I assumed splash proof at best. Onnce again I have to look at the reality of my lifestyle. I rarely swim and despite my plans to take up sailing (thank you Covid) I don’t spend any real time on water. I am one of those strange people who used to shower while wearing a watch, but it's a habit I’d given up prior to buying this watch. I do wear the W10 on long walks including a few in the rain and it has been to the gym. It has performed remarkably well. The only time I was really concerned had less to do with liquid water and more to do with ice. I was preparing a few rounds of drinks and noticed that the dial fogged up. It cleared the next day. This has me worried but then I found a thread (which I can’t find again) that said this is a common occurrence and no one to be worried about. Overall I’m very happy, I’ve a watch that I can wear doing manual labour, hiking, running, lifting weights and I only need to be careful when shaking a cocktail.



Acrylic Crystal

This was my first daily with an acrylic crystal. I have to say I love the look and the distortion and I think the acrylic makes the watch. However tragedy struck. One week in and I scraped the crystal. Not a deep gash, but I could notice it in certain lights. So Polywatch to the rescue. I bought a tube, watched a YouTube video and two minutes later the crystal was perfect.



Overall I’m very happy and I’m going to be wearing the W10 in regular rotation. All it needed were a few minor changes in behaviour and attitude.