Hamilton Spirit of Liberty Review

To celebrate the birth of my son, I knew I wanted to get an American watch. Well, something as close to it without going vintage. It's a shame that the watch making industry died out in America, though with the Ameriquartz and independent watch makers, it does seem to be coming back.

I digress. In summary, after much deliberation (online, thank you COVID), this was the watch I chose. Why?

First of all, it's a Hamilton. Of course they are now owned by the Swiss conglomerate Swatch group, but they had the American heritage. 

Second, the watch reminds me of a train head. And trains remind me of the frontier period in American history. Not that I'm a history buff or anything, I can barely remember what I did yesterday.

Thirdly, I like that marriage of dress and sports. It sort of looks like an IWC Portofino homage, but bolder.

Personal story out of the way, on to the watch itself. The case is 42mm wide, 52mm lug-to-lug, and 15mm thick. For a dressy chronograph, it's very large. Not only that, but the first link on the bracelet does not bend all the way down, essentially adding another 10mm to the case height. It looks a lot better on straps.

Speaking of the bracelet, despite its almost making-it-unusable flaw, it's quite well made. It has a beautiful taper, and it doesn't pull hairs. There are half links to help with the sizing, and the butterfly clasp is well machined.

The dial is silver with a beautiful sunburst finish with rose gold plated indices. It's stunning as is, but when the light hits it just right: it's mesmerizing. The dial also features and up-down bicompax layout for the chronograph with printed indices. On the right is the Hamilton family crest, not often used for their watches, and the Hamilton logo. On the right is the date window. The hands are beautifully executed feuille hands, also plated in rose gold. 

While beautiful, the dial is unfortunately not perfect. The top minutes indicator for the chronograph has emphasis markers at 2.5 minutes increments, but the hand itself jumps every minute. There is also no running seconds hand. Thin rose gold hands on a reflective silver dial makes it difficult to read the time sometimes.

The movement inside the watch is Hamilton's H-21, which is a modified Valjoux 7750. It has a longer power reserve (60 hrs), it has been tweaked to run more precisely, and it still features the Valjoux wobble. Thankfully they were able to achieve all this whilst keeping the tick rate at 4Hz. The particular watch above was running at around +10 spd, which is acceptable in my books.

Despite some major flaws, I really came to love this watch. Yes, the chronograph is borderline gimmicky. Yes, the bracelet is nearly unuseable. Yes, I have a watch but I'm having trouble telling you what time it is.

But it's a beautiful watch.