Review: Hamilton Pilot Pioneer

If you time-travelled back to the 1970s and you decided to buy yourself a watch, you could pick up something rugged and functional like a Rolex Submariner for just a few hundred dollars. Unfortunately, time travel hasn’t been invented yet, but that doesn’t make the realisation that, with inflation, that same Submariner should only cost a few thousand dollars today, a far cry from the actual cost. But what if, instead of turning the hands back on time, you could turn them back on price instead? Hamilton thinks you can with this, the Pilot Pioneer.

It’s worth bearing in mind that, in the seventies, the Rolex Submariner was very much not a luxury watch. Far from it. It was a device, an instrument, a tool, built like all good tools were back then: to last. The idea of wearing a Rolex as a luxury item was unheard of, and really the trend for wearing Rolex was, ironically, a generation of people breaking free from the stifling formalities of their parents before them.

A Rolex watch was stylish because it said a person didn’t care to look fancy and formal; take a look at photos of legends of that era like Steve McQueen and Paul Newman and you’ll see men dressed to be comfortable, open shirts and jeans, not a dickie bow in sight outside of a photoshoot. The Rolex was the perfect watch for the ensemble and the era, free of excess, pure, simple and straight to the point.

But this isn’t about Rolex; this is about the sentiment, the feeling that Rolex created back in the late sixties, early seventies. It has since evolved away from that, through the excess of the eighties and the rise of the collector in the nineties, and now into an era of commodity. But that feeling, that nostalgia, is still very much alive—and so too are those nostalgic price tags.

Hamilton, as a brand, isn’t really given much credence, it’s sad to say. You may have seen that I recently purchased a Hamilton of my own—click here to take a look if you haven’t—and in the journey to buying that watch I discovered a lot along the way that gave me enormous respect for the watchmaker. But it won’t be in Geneva you find the origins of this brand, but Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Now, Hamilton will tell you it was founded in 1892, but by the standards other brands use to measure their points of origin, it’s being modest. Where the story really starts is in 1874, with the establishment of the Adams and Perry Watch Company. Needing investment, the community of Lancaster rallied together and raised enough capital to keep the business going, which rebranded in 1877 to the Lancaster Watch Company. More financial woes saw another rebranding in 1884 to the Keystone Standard Watch Company, and finally in 1892, yet another restructure yielded the name we’re familiar with today: the Hamilton Watch Company.

Hamilton wasn’t the name of the founder or anything like that; Andrew Hamilton was the original owner of the site this ever-changing business had been established on, and the company was renamed in honour of him—and there it stayed until 1969 before uprooting to Switzerland. Hamilton, amongst other things, was a development partner in the famous Calibre 11 automatic chronograph, manufactured millions of high-quality pocket watches for the American railroad, and even built the world’s first electric watch.

But what we’re interested in here is Hamilton’s contribution to the military. If you’re looking for a no-nonsense watch, a military-issue one is just the ticket. Rolex made watches for the military, and so did Hamilton. The first, highly accurate chronometers were delivered by Hamilton to the US Navy in 1942. The watch that was the inspiration for what we see here in the Pilot Pioneer dates back to the 1970s. I think we might be on to something.

This isn’t the first time Hamilton has raided the archives to bring us an affordable watch. The precursor to this Pilot Pioneer, the Khaki Field Mechanical, took inspiration from a 1962 American field watch, and it did so without making the mistake of luxurising it—a word here I’ve invented to mean, “make needlessly expensive”. Hamilton kept it as it was, simple, affordable and rugged, and that’s exactly the same for this Pilot Pioneer.

More specifically, this watch draws from a model issued to British Royal Air Force pilots, from which it retains its 33 by 36mm dimensions, railroad dial design and italicised logo. You’ll notice that the steel case is very, very simple, exactly as it was in the 1970s, brushed from top to bottom in one smooth stroke. You won’t find fancy bevelling or polishing or any of that nonsense here—this was a watch for pilots, not playboys. What you get is pretty much what comes out of the case stamping machine.

Everything below the mineral glass crystal—not quite as scratch-resistant as sapphire but better than the original acrylic—abides by the same mentality, from the textured black base to the printed markers to the broad, luminous paint-laden hands. And, in the spirit of the watch’s heritage, that luminous paint is given an aged colouration to mimic the chemical breakdown of what would have originally been radioactive tritium-based paint—indicate by a circled “T” on the original. You’ll be pleased to know there’s no radiation here this time around.

Probably the only bit of flair Hamilton’s allowed for this watch is the logo on the tip of the polished crown, again borrowed from the period, but not present on the original watch. Gone is the Broad Arrow logo, used by the British Government to denote its property, and presumably absent due to copyright.

Unexpectedly faithful is the hand wound movement, which, would you believe it, remains virtually identical to the one used in the 1970s. Once known as the Hamilton calibre 649 and based on an ETA 2750, it has since evolved into the Hamilton calibre H-50. This very conveniently means the watch can remain identical in size, and although you don’t get to see it, you do get to enjoy the extension of that 21,600vph beat to a full 80 hours of reserve.

Another pleasant surprise is the addition of 100m of water resistance. Pilots don’t generally find themselves submerged in water unless something’s gone very, very wrong, so the original made do with splash resistance. New seal technology and higher machining precision means you don’t have to put up with that same limitation, and hey, it’s a rugged-looking watch so it’s nice to be able to wear it and not worry.

It all comes together as part of a no-nonsense package that could very easily be mistaken for new-old stock, fresh from a time capsule sealed up fifty years ago. And not only is the watch itself an almost perfectly preserved relic of the past—the price is too, pinned at £720 brand spanking new. Tell me if I’m wrong, but that sounds like a very reasonable proposition.

The Hamilton Pilot Pioneer seems like an open-shut case of a watchmaker actually listening to people. Never mind taking that original 1970s watch and dolling it up with expensive lipstick and a fancy hairdo, Hamilton has quite simply taken to the photocopier and we’re all the more grateful for it. The fact that means the watch doesn’t get an eye-watering price tag is not just a bonus, but a defining feature, a reminder of what it must have been like looking for a reliable timekeeper in the latter part of the 20th century. We may not have time travel, but the Hamilton Pilot Pioneer is a pretty good consolation prize.

Looking for a pre-owned Hamilton watch? Click here to shop now

Looking for pre-owned Hamilton finance? Click here to shop now