RSVP for Topper Jeweler’s x Watch The Bay Meetup’s “Field Day” to Check Out the New Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical White Dial and Vintage Museum and Movie Pieces!

In collaboration with “Watch The Bay” meetups group, Topper Jewelers will be hosting a Hamilton History “Field Day” event at their Burlingame, California store on March 16.  At the event, Topper will have a series of amazing vintage Hamilton pieces on loan from the National Watch and Clock Museum (which partners with Hamilton to preserve Hamilton’s legacy, historical artifacts, archives, and information). This includes several late sixties and mid-seventies references upon which the Khaki Field Mechanical is based. One of these references from 1969 was part of a government contract as an issued watch, and includes the coveted engravings of provenance on its case back.

You can also expect to see several other unique Hamilton watches from the brand’s more recent offerings, particularly those that have starred in popular Hollywood movies from the last two decades. This includes the iconic Ventura Quartz, which would go on to become the Men in Black watch, the blacked-out Khaki BeLOWZERO that appears in The Martian on the wrist of Matt Damon, and a stealthy Khaki Field Automatic reference used in the more recent Jack Ryan series starring John Krasinski. We’ll also have Hamilton’s latest Hollywood release: the hotly-anticipated Khaki Field Murph, which will be on-hand.

The featured watch on display and star of the evening will be the new Khaki Field Mechanical white. Since it was announced in November 2017, the Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical has become an extremely popular watch in the watch community thanks to its versatile styling and faithful adherence to its source material: an iconic American military-issue field watch from the 1960s. It has been one of Topper Jeweler’s best-selling Swiss watches since it first hit their shelves last year, and Topper’s Rob Caplan is personally a big fan of the watch and often recommends it to both hardcore collectors and new watch fans alike.

Identifying references that represent unique value and credibility among the watch community has long been one of Topper’s North Stars. It has led to a number of creative and collaborative projects with some of Rob’s favorite brands, including Nomos, Oris, Zodiac, and most recently, Seiko. Last summer, Rob worked with Hamilton on designing a white-dialed field watch, using the Khaki Field Mechanical as the inspiration. He was thrilled to learn that Hamilton took that design input and added it to their 2019 collection. This new white-dialed Khaki Field Mechanical can be pre-ordered now at Topper Jewelers in three configurations: on a green-textile mil-strap ($495), a leather mil-strap ($525), or in a special box with both mil-straps and a strap-changing tool ($625), which is expected to begin delivering in May.

Like the many classic white-dialed field watches that inspired it, the white-dialed Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical is all about maximizing legibility in low-light situations. Though the crisp white dial maintains the same vintage-inspired ecru luminous paint on the hands and hour markers that is found on the current olive- and black-dialed variants, it is equipped with a new black handset to better contrast with the dial. Not only does this dial offer the best dial contrast (and therefore, legibility) in the series, enthusiasts will find that this color scheme is also a veritable “strap monster” that will look great on the two different stock NATO straps, as well as textured leather, different colors of canvas, and even rubber.

The white-dialed Khaki Field Mechanical is built around the same 38-millimeter, bead-blasted 316L stainless steel case. However, it’s worth noting that this edition gets an upgrade on the internals, differentiating them from the 2018 global launch. This watch features Hamilton’s new H-50 caliber, a hand-wound mechanical movement with 80 hours of power reserve. The generous reserve wouldn’t be possible without a slight reduction to the watch’s beat rate, but it’s a worthy tradeoff, particularly for a manually wound watch that can now run without interaction for nearly four full days.

Our event Saturday is from 5:30-8:00 at 1315 Burlingame Ave., in Burlingame, California . We hope to see you there for what should be an incredible evening! You can RSVP for the event here!