1964 M 89-4

There were 12 M-series watches in Hamilton's 1964 lineup.  Conventional wisdom is the M-series (and F-series of ladies models) were marketed through a special channel, like a nation-wide chain store.  The line was produced from 1961 through 1967, or thereabouts.  The models are known by their price and the sequential order.

The fourth model to be priced at $89 was the 1964 M 89-4.  

The M 89-4 came in a stainless steel case with a white dial and a matching bracelet.

I recently picked up an M 89-4 and it's the fifteenth M-series model I've laid hands on.  It arrived in decent shape, just a little banged up on the crystal and a smudge on the dial near the 7 marker.

The stainless steel case is a typical one-piece design so the watch opens through the crystal.

Inside is a Hamilton 689 17 jewel automatic movement.

The ETA automatics of the 1960's are all very similar and once you get practiced at taking apart one of them you can pretty much tackle any of them.  Shown below are the parts after being cleaned and dried.

Without the rotor not installed yet, the movement looks like a garden variety manual winding movement.  All that's needed now is the balance.

I like to put the balance on after putting some tension into the mainspring - that way the watch will start running if everything is in order.  As you can see below, the balance is spinning away briskly so it's off to the timer next.

Well, something inside is making a little extra noise, probably a microscopic piece of lint on the hairspring.  It doesn't take much to through off the watch's timing.

That's better, now it's just a matter of tweaking the regulator to bring the timing in line.

The rotor assembly goes on, along with the dial and then I can drop it back into the case.

A new crystal will do a lot to improve the looks of the watch.  30.6mm will do the job nicely.

The hour and minute hands are pressed on at 12:00 so they'll be synchronized.  It doesn't really matter where the second hand goes, it's driven separately from the other hands.

And here's the finished watch on a fresh strap.  Other than the small scrape on the dial, I think it looks almost new.

1951 Blake

When it comes to catalogs, 1951 is a tough year to beat.  Hamilton's catalog detailed every model on it's own page in a thick folio.  It's purely conjecture on my part, but I wouldn't be surprised if Hamilton started to cut costs in 1952 by simplifying it's marketing materials, as the difference in quality between the 1951 catalog and 1952 is dramatic.

One of the watches introduced in 1951 was the Blake.  It was produced for three years.  Although bracelets first appeared sporadically in the early 1930's, bracelets became much more commonplace in the early 1950's and it's the only time you'll see Speidel bracelets occasionally used on Hamilton watches.

The Blake came in a 14K  yellow gold filled case.  Like most other models, it featured solid gold markers on a sterling silver dial.  In the case of the Blake, the markers were dots, numerals and rectangular markers.

Tucked behind the dial is a 17 jewel 747 movement.

I recently purchased a Blake project watch and I took a bit of a risk with it.  As you can see below, it's missing it crown and it's rather dirty too.  You never know what you're going to find inside a watch that's missing it's crown.  It could be a rusty mess.

The watch is inscribed with initials of it's original owner and it was a Christmas present from 1952.  My favorite type of presentation.

Looks like the watch isn't only missing its crown, it's also missing its stem.

It doesn't take an incredible eye for detail to notice the minute hand is also missing from the watch.  The dial is a bit grunge but I might be able to clean it up so the two tone butler and white finish will look better.

The movement doesn't look too bad.  There's a bridge screw missing but otherwise everything looks okay.  The balance is the most important part in a watch so I'm glad to see that appears to be in good order.

There's no doubt what this model is... the name is stamped inside the case back.

The 747 is probably my favorite movement.  It's the very first movement I ever took apart and it's simple and straightforward to reassemble.  Of course, that doesn't mean I never screwed one up before... I've done that plenty of time but that's the tuition in the watchmaking school of hard knocks.

A new glass crystal will be a nice addition to the finished watch.

Getting the right hands is a critical part of restoring a watch.  As a general rule, the hour hand should just reach the closest hour marker and the minute hand should reach the closest section of the minute track.  This watch is relatively square but that especially important with a more rectangular-shaped dial.

The reassembled movement is off to the timer and it appears to be running two+ minutes fast per day.

The regulator was set a little fast so a slight tweak brings the time right in line.  Notice how the two lines approach horizontal.  That's the effect of my moving the regulator.

The dial and movement go back into the case and a new crown completes the restoration.  The dial cleaned up nicely.  It still shows some spotting but I will too when I get to 60+ years old, I bet.

It's amazing what a little elbow grease will do to improve the outside of the watch case.  Now you can clearly see the engraving on the back.  Despite it's original filth, this watch is actually in great condition and it runs as good as it looks.

1959 Sea-Mate

Most of the watches in Hamilton's line up in the 1950's and 60's were round.  I guess that's because most of the movements in Hamilton's line up were round... between the automatics, manual winders and Electrics, only the 770 was non-round. 

Of course, it was possible to put a round movement in a square case and there are plenty of square models to choose from.  There aren't that many with a sweep second hand though.  One of them is the 1959 Sea-Mate.

The Sea-Mate was produced through 1961 and came on a strap or a bracelet.  The bracelet is shown in the catalog image - although I'm not really sure what it truly looks like.

Inside the 10K rolled gold plated case with stainless steel back is a Swiss-made Hamilton 671 movement made by ETA.  The case on the Sea-Mate is oddly constructed in order to be "waterproof".   Although the back snaps onto the front, the movement still uses a two-piece stem - almost like the set up you see on the CLD models from earlier in the 1950's.

You don't tend to see Sea-Mates very often.  I don't know if I'd say the model was rare - after all, it was one of the least expensive models of the era.  Maybe it wasn't very popular?

I recently purchased a Sea-Mate mainly because I'd never seen one before.  It wasn't in particularly good shape and the hands were obvious replacements as they are the wrong style and they are a little too small as well.

The crystal in the Sea Mate is very odd.  There is no ledge in the bezel for a conventional crystal.  Instead, the crystal has a ledge around all four sides so it passes through the bezel from behind and rests, presumably, on the dial.  I suspect there should be a gasket involved somewhere, this is a "water proof" watch after all, but there wasn't one inside this watch.

The crystal has a small crack in it and a few scratches that won't polish out.  So I'll need to purchase a replacement.  Fortunately, a quick perusal through the GS catalog reveals the Sea-Mate takes a CMS 980.

The dial and movement fit securely in the stainless steel back.  So I need to located the gap in the female side of the stem so I can swing the movement out.  You can see in the shot below that the embossed dial has a circular texture pattern along with the markers and pearled track.  This would be a tricky dial to get redone correctly, I bet.

The 671 movement is very similar to the ETA automatics from the same period, just without the automatic parts.  It fact, it shares a lot of parts with the ETA 679, etc.

Everything is cleaned and dried before being reassembled.

The running movement has good motion so it's off to the timer to see for sure how it's performing.

A little fast but that's pretty much where I like to see them when they're reassembled.  I'll check it again after it runs for a while.

I happened to have the proper hands for the Sea-Mate so I installed them along with a better Hamilton waterproof crown.  The watch will look a little better once I put a new crystal on it but it's not too bad as is.