It’s no secret that Hamilton watch company is one of my perennial favorites when it comes to watch brands. For the money they offer one of the best values in the world of watches; great design and style, nice materials like sapphire crystals, titanium and stainless steel cases, and great automatic ETA movements. Being part of the Swatch group, they have access to the full range of ETA movements and use them quite well as their “in-house” movement. Eta is nothing to sneeze at either, they are robust , accurate, easy to maintain and relatively inexpensive. So, now that you know why I like Hamilton so much, you have got to see what they are releasing that really gets me excited.
I like watches that have a few complications; date, chronograph, perpetual calendar and the like. One of the most practical complication (other than a date) is a GMT or dual time zone watch. The More you can do to interact with a watch the better. To me the dual time is so practical because in our time people travel so often, and have friends and relatives that live all over the place. One of my best friends lives in Hannover Germany, so its valuable to me to know his time as well as my own. Right now I use my Rolex Explorer II set to his time so I know when it is too late to call.
Enter the Hamilton Jazzmaster face to face. Hamilton’s latest masterpiece released for Baselworld 2013 is about as cool as a dual time watch as they come. A very swell oval-shaped timepiece with two self-winding mechanical movements and dials that you spin to see each. You physically turn the watch around in the case with a clever mechanism of Hamilton design. On the obverse, is a chronograph with date function and reverse is a time-only watch. Unfortunately the price is rather uncharacteristic of Hamilton, but being such a limited edition it is expected.
In both cases, you are able to view one of the two mechanical movements from behind. The movements are the ETA 2094 for the chronograph, and a ETA 2671 for the time-only version. on the time only dial the time is set with the aid of a lever that is pulled out similar to a pocket watch movement. The time setting and operation of the chronograph is performed in the conventional way using s center crown and two pushers.
It comes in a stainless steel case/carrier with sapphire front and back crystals on a black strap with double row blue stitching lining matching the blue accents on the dial. The Hamilton Face 2 Face is a large piece, at 53 x 44 mm. Although being oval shape, it is very wearable, the dimensions make it seem larger than it is. This watch is limited to a production of 888 pieces, world-wide. And like most of Hamilton’s line it is very dramatic and a gorgeous watch. This Jazzmaster is more expensive than we are used to from this brand, but still very worth it. The recommended retail price is 6195 USD / 4900 Euro.
The Hamilton brand is historic and perpetually cool, Now backed by the swatch group they continue to be known for quality and design, and they always seem to do everything swell.
(Images courtesy of Hamiltonwatches.com, and Fratellowatches.com)
