This is the Hamilton Khaki Aviation Pilot Pioneer, it’s a Swiss-made watch powered by the automatic H-10 movement with 25 jewels, and a power reserve of up to 80 hours.
Interestingly, the Hamilton Watch Company was founded in the United States and became the most popular pocket watch maker for railroad workers in the late 1800s. The company moved its operations to Switzerland in the 1960s, and it’s now a Swiss company.
The design of the Hamilton Khaki Aviation Pilot Pioneer is based on vintage military timepieces, with a 38 mm stainless steel case, a classic three-hand display, and a high contrast face and hands designed to be easily legible at nighttime and low light conditions.
The Hamilton Watch Company
The Hamilton Watch Company was formed through the consolidation of several watch companies, including the Adams & Perry Watch Manufacturing Company, the Lancaster Watch Company, and the Keystone Watch Company. The company’s first offering was a pocket watch which went on sale in 1893.
Hamilton quickly built a reputation for making accurate timepieces, which were essential for railroad operations at the time and not always easy to find – many (if not most) watches of the era didn’t keep accurate time. The “Broadway Limited” series, known as the “Watch of Railroad Accuracy,” became a de facto standard among railroad workers and held over 56% of the market.
During World War I, Hamilton supplied wristwatches to the U.S. military. This period also marked the company’s transition from pocket watches to wristwatches. Later, during World War II, the company ceased consumer production entirely to focus on military timepieces, producing over a million watches for the U.S. Armed Forces. During the conflict Hamilton developed the Model 21 marine chronometer, which met the U.S. Navy’s stringent requirements for precision.
In 1957, Hamilton introduced the Electric 500, the world’s first battery-powered electric wristwatch. This new design completely eliminated the need for winding the mechanism, and featured a modern, avante garde design with a non-symmetrical case.
In 1966, Hamilton acquired the Swiss company Buren Watch Company, this allowed it to incorporate Swiss movements into its watches. By 1969, Hamilton had ceased American manufacturing entirely and moved operations to Switzerland. In 1974, the company became part of the Société Suisse pour l’Industrie Horlogère (SSIH).
The Swiss-made Hamilton Khaki Aviation Pilot Pioneer is powered by the automatic H-10 movement with 25 jewels, and a power reserve of up to 80 hours.
In 1970, Hamilton released the Pulsar, the first digital watch with an LED display. No one knew it at the time, but digital watches with quartz mechanisms like this would soon spell doom for many established watch makers, and it would nearly kill off the mechanical watch industry all together.
Fortunately, mechanical watches, particularly automatic self-winding variants, would find their feet once again. Today they make up a thriving multi-billion dollar industry, and they have successfully fended off not only quartz watches, but also the current generation of high-end smartwatches led by the Apple Watch.
The Hamilton Khaki Aviation Pilot Pioneer
The first men’s wristwatch was developed for aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont in 1904, he needed a way of quickly checking the time elapsed while in the air, and he didn’t have time for removing a pocket watch and flipping open the case.
During WWI and later during WWII, wristwatches would become common among servicemen, and they kept wearing them after the respective conflicts ended, starting the trend that continues to the current day.
The Hamilton Khaki Aviation Pilot Pioneer is based on these vintage military timepieces, with a 38 mm stainless steel case, a classic three-hand display, and a high contrast face and hands designed to be easily legible at nighttime and low light conditions.
It comes with a classic leather strap, a sapphire crystal, and an exhibition case back to show the movement. It’s made in Switzerland is water resistant to 100 meters or 328 ft.
The watch is powered by the Hamilton automatic H-10 movement and it comes with a classic leather strap, a sapphire crystal, and an exhibition case back to show the movement. The watch is made in Switzerland and it’s water resistant to 100 meters or 328 ft.
It’s now being offered on Huckberry with free US shipping, free US returns, and a best price guarantee. If you’d like to read more or get your own you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of Huckberry
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Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.