Hamilton Khaki Field H69429901 Review & Complete Guide
Hamilton has established itself as a watch brand that offers watches that offer great value for money. Hamilton timepieces are certainly not the most affordable on the market, but in relation to what they offer and their price, it appears that the market has deemed Hamilton watches great value. And we think so too.
This is why, in recent years, more and more watch enthusiasts have found the brand and started paying more attention to it.
As the brand so proudly highlights, Hamilton stands for ”American spirit and Swiss precision”. The brand has a long and rich American history as it was originally founded in the USA. Later, however, the brand relocated and got to establish itself in the country of watchmaking and take part in the expertise and know-how of Swiss watchmaking.
Today, the brand combines the best of both worlds by using American spirit for its designs and inspiration, and combining that with Swiss precision and build quality. And it appears that this is a recipe for success for Hamilton.
One of the most popular collections from the brand today is the Khaki Field collection. This has a lot to do with the brand’s history and heritage, as the brand delivered tons of watches to the military. Including delivering watches to the US military during world war 2. With that said, Hamilton has become known for its vintage military watches, and very cleverly, the brand has continued to build on its success also in modern times. And people tend to appreciate the modern build quality and precision with the vintage-inspired design.
With that said, as the Khaki Field collection has grown in popularity, more and more models have joined the family. In this collection, there really is a watch for everyone. One of the watches in this collection is the Hamilton Khaki Field reference H69429901, and that is the timepiece we are going to look closer at in this article.
Hamilton Khaki Field H69429901 Review
The H69429901 is a ”time only” watch, and therefore very clean and simple.
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The Hamilton Khaki Field H69429901 is, just like the rest of Hamilton’s Khaki Field collection inspired by the brand’s vintage military field watches. And if you do a little digging on these watches, you’ll be able to recognize many of the design features. Very evidently, you can see that it has a very classic and traditional design. At the same time, it proves just how truly timeless it is. More specifically, this watch is inspired directly by the vintage Hamilton gg-w-113 which has a great and interesting military history.
In this article, we are reviewing the Hamilton Khaki Field H69429901.
But before we dig in, we need to sort out something first. This watch is equipped with an ETA movement and has the reference H69429901. This is a seemingly identical timepiece but it is instead equipped with the Hamilton Caliber H50 movement. This watch has the reference number H69439901.
With that said, these two are not to be confused. Visually, they look identical, but internally, they are not.
In addition, this model is available with two dials, and these are not to be mixed up either. Firstly, we have the Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical reference H69429931 with black dial, and the reference H69429901 with brown/tropical dial. The latter is the one we are focusing on in this article.
Hamilton Khaki Field H69429901 case
Starting off with the case, this watch features a 38mm matte bead blasted case. Of course, the completely matte case gives it a very sporty and rugged look.
Since this watch is manual, it doesn’t have a rotor, and this allows the case to be quite thin. In fact, approximately 10mm. This means the watch can slip under a cuff with ease. The 38mm diameter stays true to the tradition of small dimensions of vintage watches, which means it is good for medium to small wrists. But with that said, the watch actually wears slightly larger due to its relatively long lugs. The watch has a lug-to-lug length of 47mm. This combination of a relatively long lug length and a slim and small case results in a watch with a large presence on the wrist without feeling bulky or clumsy.
The lugs are very aggressively shaped and almost rectangular with sharp edges. The lugs are drilled which makes adjusting and changing the strap very easy.
A downside of this watch is that it does not have an anti-reflective coating on the crystal, which can result in some glare. But at the same time, it’s still nice to have a sapphire crystal on this watch as some watches in this price range sometimes opt for mineral glass. For a vintage touch, the crystal is slightly domed.
Hamilton Khaki Field H69429901 dial
However, with that said, there’s actually quite a bit going on with the dial, but Hamilton successfully executes it and makes it busy, but not cluttered. There’s a big difference there.
There’s a lot going on, but the dial is extremely well-thought-out and visually pleasing for the eyes. It is perceived as clean and classic.
What stands out about this watch is its matte brown and rich ”tropical” dial which really adds to the vintage appeal. Vintage lovers will likely love this brown dial which is known as ”tropical” as it is an occurrence that can happen to some vintage watches as a sign of aging (usually matte black dials which turn brown from aging).
As a military watch should, it has only painted markers and not applied. Generally, we expect watches in this price range to have applied markers as they tend to enhance the impression and feeling of quality, but for this watch, because of what it is, applied markers simply aren’t suitable.
Around the outer edge of the dial, the seconds markers are printed in white. This is with the exception of the five-minute markers which are triangle-shaped and have a tropical/cream/brownish color, also known as ”faux patina”. So-called fake patina is something that splits opinions, but for a vintage-inspired watch like the H69429901, it actually works really great.
Moving on, the watch has large painted white Arabic numerals from 1 to 12. Just inside these numerals, we have a 24-hour display with Arabic numerals in traditional military watch fashion.
For improved legibility, the hands are painted white and have faux patina luminescent material. This matches the brown dial and markers extremely well. Hamilton has really thought through every single detail of this watch carefully and well.
Photo: Azfinetime.com
Hamilton Khaki Field H69429901 movement
The watch is equipped with the Swiss-made, hand-wound ETA caliber 2801-2. This is a sturdy, robust, and long-lasting mechanical movement which is perfect for a military field watch like this one. It comes naturally for Hamilton to use ETA movements since the Swatch Group owns Hamilton, and in turn also ETA.
The movement beats with a frequency of 28800 BPH.
Watch nerds and enthusiasts particularly appreciate this watch due to its manual-winding function. There is just something special about winding a mechanical movement by hand just like in the old days. It creates an appreciation for the mechanical piece of craftsmanship inside. It’s difficult to explain, but one that watch enthusiasts will recognize themselves in very well.
But if you don’t care about that stuff, what you need to know is that this movement is durable, reliable, and built to take a beating.
In addition, this movement is equipped with 17 jewels and has a power reserve of 42 hours.
Hamilton Khaki Field H69429901 strap
The Hamilton Khaki Field H69429901 is presented on a sand-colored/beige vintage-style NATO strap with leather accents. The strap goes very well with the design of the watch and feels quite qualitative.
The 20mm lug width and lug holes make it very easy to change to a different strap, shall you wish to do so.
Specifications
- Diameter: 38mm
- Movement: ETA caliber 2801-2
- Frequency: 28800 BPH
- Lug-to-lug: 47mm
- Power reserve: 42 hours
Conclusion
To conclude this article, it’s easy to see why the Hamilton Khaki Field H69429901 has come to become so immensely popular. First of all, the watch has an appealing and interesting history, which is made even special by the fact that it is made by Hamilton – a brand that has a long and close history with military watches.
In addition to this, the H69429901 combines vintage design elements with modern build quality and reliability. This also goes to show that the design is truly timeless as it is implemented decades after being first presented.
With its toned-down tool-like tool, it makes for a great everyday timepiece that is superbly versatile. For watch nerds and enthusiasts, the manual winding function is an appreciated touch in a world where most mechanical watches today are automatic.
This watch, at this price point, it’s safe to say that it offers exceptional value for money.
The Hamilton Khaki Field H69429901 is available to order on Amazon.
