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On March 9th, 2025, I sat down and had lunch with René Rondeau, a person who was instrumental to me in the Hamilton Watch world. I call him my friend and mentor. He helped me more times than I can remember. He is the “Hamilton Electric Guru.”
We met at our usual spot in Larkspur California, which we have done for years. René sat down and joined me and a fellow collector, Richard Tung, for lunch. After René ordered his Cappucino, we noticed he was wearing his Hamilton Electric Converta III with a Hamilton prototype electric 502 movement and custom clear back. I surprised him and said today, I want to interview my mentor, someone I have known for some 30 years. Much to his surprise, his eyes lit up and he said fire away. I started off by asking about his childhood and where he was born and much to my amazement, he was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and grew up in nearby Springfield. We started talking about his youth, René has one brother, but added he has a wife, daughter and, as his eyes lit up, said he also has two granddaughters. Spoken like a true grandpa. René attended the University of Kansas, majored in French lit with a minor in Japanese, but also studied Arabic and Italian. He has always had a gift for languages. When we started going through his career path, he explained that out of college he worked in the fine wine industry for 23 years, specializing in Bordeaux. Outside of the wine business, René has collected and repaired old phonographs since 1961. (Years ago, on a visit to his home, his living room was filled with vintage phonographs, and I was fortunate to hear one play, what a great sound it was.) Moving on, we got on the subject of watches, René explained when he was a teenager he first became interested in watches and collected several early pocket watches (only one of which he still has – a Hampden, made in the 1880s in his hometown of Springfield, MA). Later, in 1983, René bought his first collectible wristwatch, a Hamilton Brock, a 14K gold watch with a 982 movement, for $200. He was hooked, just like the rest of us. He rapidly began to acquire a wide variety of vintage watches from various makers. So, this discussion naturally lead to my asking how he got into electrics. On a trip to the Smithsonian, in 1984, Rene saw the original display of “World's First Electric Watch,” which Hamilton had donated to the museum in 1958, and which was still being exhibited, with no updates. The display included a Ventura with the two-tone gold and black band, and several prototype watches. One early prototype had the battery in the strap! This got him to thinking about how complicated it must have been to put a battery into a watch movement. This brief introduction sparked an interest that became an obsession. As soon as he got home he purchased a Pacer from Don Levison, a collector in San Francisco, and as René laughingly said, it ran. He soon acquired other electrics, not all of which did run. Over time he began selling off all his non-Hamilton watches. Then he saw a black & white photograph of an Altair in a want ad in the NAWCC Mart magazine and his obsession over the electrics went into overdrive. There was almost no information available about Hamilton electrics at the time. They were barely mentioned in any books, and no one knew what the various models were originally called, which is why most collectors called the Altair the “Tomahawk.” René wanted to learn more and began digging for information, but there was hardly anything. One day he saw a photo in the NAWCC Bulletin of a retired Hamilton employee at a NAWCC event. He got the man's phone number through 'information' in Lancaster, PA, and called. That fellow hadn't worked on the electric project, but he knew someone who did. So René called him. That discussion led to more names, and so on. As it happened, René's in-laws lived in Delaware, only an hour or so from Lancaster. While visiting them in 1987 he took a day trip to Lancaster to meet a few former employees and buy some of their old memorabilia. Over the next year and a half he went back to Lancaster many times, interviewing more and more people who were directly involved with the electric watch. As he gathered material, he proposed writing an article for the Bulletin. But soon he realized he had far too much for a short article, so instead he published his first book, “The Watch of the Future,” released in February 1989. (Three more editions followed later, in 1992, 1999, and 2006.) René got into repairing watches sort of through the back door. In 1989 he had a four month paid sabbatical from the wine business, so he signed up and took a watchmaking class at a City College in San Francisco, which as he said, “was not organized at all.” But that worked to his advantage. He was able to learn some of the basics, and become familiar with tools and equipment, and then started tinkering with his own watches. If he ran into a problem, the instructor was there to help. He discovered that he had the right temperament for watchmaking, which takes a steady hand, concentration, and a knack for problem-solving. Around the same time as he took the class, he went back to Lancaster, PA and visited again with Jim Reese. But this time he wasn't asking questions about history. He was there to have Jim give him pointers on how to repair the Electric Watch, especially the tricky art of adjusting contacts in the Model 500 movement. Afterward he returned to his class and repaired all of the watches in his own collection, then started doing it for friends. Soon others started asking him for help with their electric watches. This turned into a sideline, working on watches on days when he wasn't in his wine shop. As his watch work grew, he started to cut his hours in wine. Then in early 1993 he decided to quit his original career and repair Hamilton electrics full-time, which he did for the next 23 years. In the late 1980s and early 1990s he ran advertisements in the magazine Horological Times saying “Hamilton Electric repairman seeks parts.” That worked better than he expected. He not only got a lot of critical parts from watchmakers who did not want to work on them anymore, but also many referrals for repair work. When I asked René who was the most influential person he met in the watch world, the answer was Jim Reese without a doubt. René smiled and said without Jim, I would have been lost, his time and effort to help him were never forgotten. When I asked about the biggest issues with the 500 was, his response was quick and precise: in their rush to get it out on the market, Hamilton overlooked the fact that the 500 was still a prototype, not really ready for release. A big problem with the 500 was the contact system. The design of the delicate contact wire and strip spring was very “elegant,” from a laboratory standpoint, but way too fragile for a production watch. Watchmakers back in the day really struggled with that. But the biggest problem for Hamilton was that they decided the electric watch was so complicated that watchmakers shouldn't attempt to fix them, and instead told them to send them to the factory for service. This was an insult to skilled watchmakers. By the time Hamilton started a training program the damage was done. Hamilton's reputation suffered. Another person that helped René with Hamilton research (and parts) was Dr. Robert Ravel, a Pennsylvania collector. Dr. Ravel had purchased several semi-truckloads of materials from the factory when it closed in the early 1970s. He filled several warehouses with equipment and materials. Among the many treasures Ravel had saved from destruction were the “Halligan Records,” summarizing decades of production at Hamilton, in great detail. Ravel loaned René his original copies of those records, saying he could copy them for his own use, and could use the information in his upcoming book “Hamilton Wristwatches, a Collector's Guide,” but he could not share the records with anyone. Those production figures had never been published anywhere and were a huge help to collectors. After Dr. Ravel passed away, René gave me a copy of the Halligan Records with a signed NDA. Later on the records were given to the NAWCC by Dr. Ravel’s estate, and now everyone has access to the same records. I was lucky to have them back then as it helped me with my collecting efforts. René chuckled and said “Mark, you found even more production records through your research, so you are way ahead of the pack.” When I asked René who he was most impressed with in the watch world, it sure wasn’t me, but again, it was Jim Reese. René owes it all to this man. On the subject of his favorite Hamilton Electric, it without a doubt was the Altair with the original band, followed up by saying his favorite electric movement was the 500. (“Not very rugged, but really elegant.”) But he admitted the 505 is a better movement. He was most impressed the day he acquired an 18K Coral Ventura. It was such a rare and beautiful watch. His favorite repair job was working on Lyndon B. Johnson’s Pacer, which René owned. His most satisfying restoration was when a customer sent him a Hamilton Taurus electric which he had won in a college Bowl game in 1964. The watch and especially the dial were very beat. When René sent the dial out for restoration, the refinisher did not have the dial die for the award logo and had to make it. It came back and looked like new old stock, just like the watch did after the movement was restored, the case polished, and a new crystal and strap installed. The customer called him and said he cried when he opened the package when he saw his watch in its old glory. When I asked, what is the coolest thing you have seen, his reply was again lightning quick. Dr. Ravel had some dial books, like you have Mark from the factory, there was a black flight II dial in the book, so we know it’s legit as it was in their dial book. On the subject of the dumbest thing you have seen, it didn’t take him long to remind me of when he sold me two Flight 1 prototype cases purchased from Dr. Ravel and I threw one away by mistake and now there is only one. When I asked him about his least favorite worst part of watchmaking (we all dislike some part of it), he said I'm not crazy about repairing hairsprings. As the day wore on and we were almost done, I asked René if he had any electrics still. He said I have a few nice watches left, but nothing important as I sold most of my collection through Heritage Auctions many years ago, after retirement. René is a wonderful author and has written two books, four editions on the “Watch of the Future” and of course the “Hamilton Wristwatches – A Collectors Guide.” We laughed about how popular the collectors guide is even today, 25 years after publication, with resale prices of over $200. He was also the Hamilton Watch Company's official historian for over 20 years, up until his retirement. We finished with the obvious question and the elephant in the room. How is retirement? As he said, “I would rather still be working on watches, but my several neck surgeries prevent me from doing so.” René looks great and all is good in his world with family and friends. I am truly honored to be his friend, without René’s help like he got from Jim Reese, I too would be a lost sheep.
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Don Aukamp recently celebrated his 90th birthday with his family in Telluride, Colorado. Don was born in Lancaster, PA and graduated from Lampeter High School near Lancaster in 1952. He went to work immediately at Theo. R. Schwalm Dial Co in Lancaster as a machine operator. He worked making dials for 48 years, ending up there as Product Manager. Theo Schwalm started at the Hamilton Watch Company in the 30s as an electrician and over the years became the foremen of their dial department. He left Hamilton in 1948 and began making applied numeral dials in his basement, moving to a separate building a year later. Schwalm made dials for Gruen, Benrus, Croton, some Hamilton and Timex among many others. In the early 50's he began making the cheaper embossed dial in volume and by the 60s and 70s Schwalm Dial made 5 million dials per year with 250 employees. The company continued making expensive applied gold dials, diamond dials and various other award dials. The medallion dial became quite popular in the late 80's and Schwalm made thousands of them using a 100-ton screw press. The college medallion watch was quite popular, and the company made the dies and produced dials for most of the major colleges and universities in the country. It was at this time that they also set up a casing department so that they could produce a complete medallion watch for their customers. The company was owned by Richard Gockley, Schwalm's son-in-law, before the passing of Mr. Schwalm. Gockley sold the company in 1999-2000 to Terryberry Co., an awards company located in Grand Rapids, Mich. Two years later the company was again sold to S & S, a competitor in Tulsa, Okla. Former Product Manager Aukamp, and former General Manager Roy Munro stayed with the new company for a few months, then resigned and started a new company, Logo Time, for the production and casing of all types of emblem watches. They were immediately given work from Hamilton as Hamilton had, by this time, moved from its original buildings to a neighboring industrial park and had given up their dial department several years prior.
I asked Don a few questions about dial making.
I have a great story for you Mark. Ted Schwalm went to the Basel Fair in Switzerland in the late 60's. That is the yearly event that features all the watch and equipment companies that create anything watches. He gathered everyone in the company conference room when he got back and slid about 6 watch dials out on the table, announcing, "Men, we might soon be out of business!". He explained that they were plastic dials made with the new injection molding technique that made a complete dial (with feet) from plastic. They looked 100% like brass dials! Lucky for everyone, the product never came to market, and no one ever knew why. One last story for you. I had bought the entire cabinet of 18K gold numerals and indexes from Hamilton when they discontinued their dial department. That cabinet contained 100's of small metal tins with 500 gold parts in each tin. There might have been 100,000 parts there; we never counted them. They had real value, and we even sold some to dial refinishers for replacements on dials. They also had valuable applied gold letters for watches and pocket watches that were used for personalization. When it was decided to sell the company in 1999, Dick Gockley came into my office where the cabinet was kept carrying a clear plastic 1 gallon trash bag and began dumping each tin of gold parts into the bag. He then walked out to our safe which contained our large inventory of gold parts and dumped all of them into the bag. He must have had 10 lbs. of 14K and 18K gold in that bag when he returned to his office! I guess as the owner, he was entitled to that, but I never forgot it! Interview with Don by Mark was done on 2-21-25. A QUICK HISTORY ABOUT THE HAMILTON WATCH COMPANY The Hamilton Watch Company (HWC) was founded on November 11, 1892, and incorporated on December 14, 1892. The company came into existence because of another reorganization by merging Keystone Standard Watch Co with Aurora Watch Company out of Aurora, Illinois. All the Aurora machinery was moved to Lancaster in the summer of 1892. The name Hamilton was selected to honor Andrew Hamilton, the original owner of the site in Lancaster, PA. Andrew Hamilton was granted the land by William Penn’s heirs and is credited with founding the city of Lancaster with his son James. All the watches were sold under the subsidiary name of Hamilton Corp. The Hamilton 18 size, grade 936, 17 Jewel open face watch movements were the first movements made. Serial number 15 was the first completed movement on January 31, 1893, and a handful of others in November and December of 1893. Serial #1 was completed April 21, 1896. Serial #1 & Serial #2 are on display in Columbia, PA and you can read about them in my article archive if you have not already read it. The company was founded and set out to serve the railroad market by demanding precise timepieces. By the turn of the century, the company came to be known as The Railroad Timekeeper of America. Prior to 1909 Hamilton only sold uncased pocket watch movements exclusively and were placed in cases made by other casemakers. Soon after this they started selling a cased line of railroad pocket watches in solid gold and gold fill. In the first fifteen years, the HWC, it only sold two sizes of movements, the 18-size and the smaller 16-size pocket watch movements. In 1912 Hamilton started advertising in magazines as the public thought the HWC only made railroad grade watches and the HWC realized their audience was broader than they thought. The HWC throughout its history had a great advertising department and ran wonderful ads particularly around the holidays and graduation. The women’s line of wrist watches was released in 1908 before the men’s lines were introduced in 1919. After World War I, men’s watches became popular in the United States starting with the 0 size watches (Grade 981) for men in 1919, and the Cushion was announced on November 11, 1922. The HWC started a line of men’s wrist watches including the Square and Cushion with a 6/0 size movement, grade 986 & 986A, then using the 987-17 jewel movement and the high grade 19 jewel 979 in their solid gold men’s wrist watches. From that time on, the HWC produced a great line of pocket and wrist watches. In 1930 the HWC started a radio advertising campaign to reach out to potential men or women customers across the USA and in the mid 1930’s and wholesale distributors were each given a defined territory which Hamilton designated as a "zone" to reach more customers in specific areas of the USA. From the start, the HWC was a successful company and in 1929 posted a net profit of $1.8 million off $7.6M in sales. When the great depression hit, HWC experienced a couple of bad years (as did the nation) but soon recovered and was profitable again. According to Annual reports I have from 1926 through 1974, Hamilton only had four losing years: 1932 (-$987,000) and 1933 (-$148,000) after the great depression and then in 1970 (-$23,651,000) and 1971 (-$2,414,000). The HWC was the premier watch company in the world, better than their Swiss rivals and by far had the best quality in the United States. As stated in the 1929 Annual Report “Production figures are gratifying because the Company has consistently and persistently refused to sacrifice workmanship and quality to quantity.” Here is an excerpt from Watch Word in 1929, titled “Would you believe: That a 6/0 Size 987 (wrist watch) contains a total of 149 parts, including the case, and 139 without the case. That a 16 Size 992 (Railroad Watch) movement contains 183 parts, with case thrown in, and 173 without. That the number of operations it takes to make a 12 Size, 23 Jewel 922 movement totals 1649? That it would take about 3 years for one such movement to go through all the operations in consecutive order? That it really takes from nine months to a year for such a movement to go through the Hamilton factory, since some operations are done at the same time. Well, Milt Manby and his staff of technicians say so, and believe it or not, we agree with them. They also go on to say that a 992 movement goes through the following departments, taking the route, and approximately the time in each department, given here; (1) Plate Room, 3 months; (2) Jeweling Room, 3 months; (3) Damaskeening Department, 1 month; (4) Gilding Department, 1 month; (5) Finishing Department, 3 months.” Swiss imports were always a concern, and in the 1945 Annual report the HWC points out that from 1938 through 1945 there were 50 importers (2,379,000 imported watches) and post WWII in 1945 there were 500 importers (9,398,716 imported watches). Hamilton used the best materials to make their watches: sterling silver dials, solid 18K numerals, and finished movements with demaskeening patterns even though no one would even see the movements. They finished them with high quality polished parts and early on they were all constructed with gold chaton jeweled settings, until the 987-F came along. This practice stopped in the late 1940’s when the size 8/0 grade 747 was designed and manufactured. The watch cases prior to 1940 were made of platinum, solid gold, sterling silver or gold fill. No wristwatches were made of stainless or nickel until WWII. Hamilton had the best quality of watches from the start through the end of the 1950’s. Interchangeability was one of Hamilton’s strong suits which began in 1931. The ability to take one part from one movement and place it in another was a huge step forward for Hamilton and made the assembly and finishing of a movement much quicker, saving hundreds of man hours to finish a watch, and of course to the bottom line. Their tolerance was so precise that this is what enabled them to take on this enormous task of interchangeability between parts. The machinery that was utilized by the HWC to create Hamilton watches was developed by Hamilton in the Hamilton factory itself. Even the instruments used in regulating the movements, scales for weighing parts, vibration machines, and the micrometers used for measuring miniature parts were made in the factory. Hamilton insisted on manufacturing with their own machinery which was vital to watch performance, and they did not trust outsiders making their parts, again quality vs. quantity. They made their own hairsprings, and in an interview through the nawcc, an ex-employee said George Daniels, the great watch maker purchased Hamilton Elinvar hairsprings directly from Hamilton for his watches. In 1957, Hamilton introduced the world’s first electric watch with a battery cell. The watch was extremely popular with the consumers and a huge success and seller. The Hamilton size 5/0 500 grade watch movement had some issues with carbon build up with the contact points and were corrected, and the new 505 grade movement resolved the issues. Many people think the electric watch was the demise of Hamilton, but Hamilton had 25M in sales in 1957 with net profits of 1.5M and in 1966 sales of 44M and net profits of 2M. The electric watches were still being made during this time frame and last appeared in the 1968 catalog. Watches accounted for 56% of total revenue in 1965, military products were 17%, the balance was from Wallace Silversmiths, Industrial Products and Precision Metals. THE TARIFF YEARS In the November 1956 issue of Timely Topics, Art Sinkler explains the decision to import watch movements vs make them in Lancaster. He states “for the past 10 years, Hamilton has been faced with one principal problem. However complex the details of that problem might be, it can be stated quite simply; the Swiss can make watch-movements for less money than similar movements can be made in the United States.” He was working to have tariffs raised on imported watches, while also looking to make new products in the Lancaster factory. Richard J. Blakinger (Sec and Gen Counsel) said “between 1951 and 1954 production of watch movements in the United States went down from three million per year to one million seven hundred thousand.” The Swiss copied the American way of manufacturing, copying the way the American’s did it. They set up separate facilities to make the parts, then supplied them to them to be assembled by individual craftsman vs the assembly line in the United States. 80% of the cost of a watch movement was labor, the Swiss paying around 70 cents per hour while the American’s were paying around $2.00 an hour. Corporate tax rates in the US were 56% while the Swiss Corporations were only paying 25%. Tariffs were needed to equalize this issue. In 1936 half the American Watch market was supplied America made movements and the other half imports. In 1936 Tariffs were cut drastically, naturally imports rose. In 1947 an agreement was reached with the Swiss to voluntary limit imports for one year, the agreement was never really enforced, the Swiss still were free to have unrestricted imports during these times. C.M Kendig the CEO of Hamilton in went to Washington before the ways and means committee to fight in unrestricted imports and stating “the American Industry was assured that the reciprocal trade agreements program would not be administered to its detriment, and that should there be any harmful effects to the American industry, means of obtaining relief therefrom would be available. The statement is difficult to believe in the light of the experience of this industry, past and present. No do we agree that is nothing more you can do.” The HWC was forced to make a lower quality line of watches as they could not compete with the lower prices of the Swiss movements as they could not pay the higher wage scale. The HWC tried to sell their imported watches under a different name and this failed. In 1956, Hamilton had 269 models in the Hamilton line, 20% were imports. To stay active, Sinkler wrote they need to expand get into other industries, here is a list of products considered: Diamond laps, butane cigarette lighters, ear microphones, jewelers and auto clocks, aerial navigation devices, mechanical counters, timers, parking meters, gages, electric razors, transistors, thermistors, transducers, replays, time computers, servo and gear heads and national standard miniature screws. Gages and auto clocks were picked from this list. A warning was issued that stated while watches are our specialty, industrial products will be a whole new learning curve. It was also mentioned that acquisitions will be in play in the future. It was written by Sinkler, “When a company is facing the problem of operating within an industry that is declining, it cannot wait until the last minute to take corrective action.” The HWC was feeling the effects of the Swiss and go out of their comfort zone and started expanding into other business. Sinkler was dead set on expanding and he did. Sinkler was unsuccessful in getting higher Tariffs and Hamilton was feeling the effects of a battle they tried to win, but for some reason the US Government would not help the watch industry out. THE DEMISE Basically until 1951 the HWC made only watches or watch related items and had no other source of revenues. The HWC made watches, chronometers, electrical clocks and timing watches until they purchased the Biggs Watch Case Co, a watch case manufacturer in Stamford, Connecticut. On March 16, 1950, the HWC put into progress Project 5223 an “automatic wrist wind watch design” having direct drive and sweep second hand, a wind indicator, a second’s setting device (hack setting), a dust proof crown (Rolex type), and a shock proof balance assembly (Van Haaften patent). This project was terminated on November 18, 1951. On November 19, 1951, the HWC made plans to make an “automatic wind wrist watch” of approximately 8/0 size, called Project 5285 and was terminated on March 16, 1953. At this same time, the Swiss were superior in the making of movements, making automatic and calendar movements, something the HWC attempted to make but gave up on. Hamilton took pride in always making their movements but started importing automatic and calendar movements from Switzerland. The HWC’s first use of Swiss automatic watches was in the 1953 catalog, not in Hamilton watches, but rather three Illinois models, the Signamatic (Eta-1256, the automatic Models A & B (Eterna-Matic 1248) under then President George Luckey. Under the leadership of Art Sinkler (President 1954-1967) in 1954, the company started importing automatic Swiss movements for Hamilton Watches and the HWC offered twelve automatic watches with Swiss imported automatic movements-marked Hamilton on the rotors: the Automatic K-200, K-201,K-300,K-301,K-350,K-400,K-401,K-450,K-501,K-502,K-550 and the K-575. This had to be a sad and horrifying defeat in the eyes of the engineers, design staff, upper management and the board. Shortly after this, almost all the Hamiltons were being made with Swiss movements. The 1964 annual report states “domestically produced Hamilton watches accounted for less than 30% of our total sales revenues.” Key word here is domestic, I would assume the balance were from abroad. At the end the HWC here in America, the HWC was only making the 945, 950B and 992B pocket watch movements, the 770 wrist watch movement, the ladies sized 758,761 and 780 movements in Lancaster, PA. In 1961, the HWC bought Standard Time Corporation, A Virgin Islands wholly owned subsidiary company. This division was making the Vantage products at a greatly reduced price and quality for the HWC’s lower end products. The obvious ploy was to compete with the Swiss as they had lower labor costs, and it was hard for the HWC to compete. The HWC grew into a large conglomerate; it was more than just a watch company. The HWC became involved in Wallace Silversmiths, Puritan Fireplace Furnishings, Industrial products, elapsed time indicators, gauges, battery operated timing devices, photo etched products in electrical components for computers and aerospace. The military products Division grew out of WWII making electrical timing mechanisms, fuzes, timing release mechanisms and safety arming devices for the Vietnam war. Hamilton also turned-out rocket fuel alloys, special metals for the Apollo program, missile timers and safety and arming devices for military applications. They were all over the place and they were not focused on what they did best, watches. In the 1964 Annual Report it states, “In May the Canadian plastics business was sold and a contract for the sale of the Puritan Fireplace Furnishings division was executed in January 1965, neither of these businesses was compatible with our other operations nor did they promised sufficient profit in the foreseeable future to warrant continuing our investment in them.” The key words here, “not compatible with our other operations.” The demise could either be attributed to Art Sinkler and his expansions outside of the watch making arena, the Swiss competition or probably was more likely due to a fellow named Jacob Hain, through his Penn Square Mutual Fund (Bush Terminal out of Reading, PA), who bought a large chunk of the HWC. His company owned 30% of the stock in 1961 which they started buying two years prior, and by December 1963, his company owned nearly 54% of the common stock. Hain obtained a board seat in 1961, and his brother Edward held one in 1963. By 1964 they had 6 board members on a 15-member board. Why the board allowed him to do this, nobody knows. Maybe some promises between upper management or just pure stupidity, it’s only anyone’s guess. Hain had full control of the CEO, Art Sinkler and the board. A handful of conservative Lancaster business leaders left the board, Charles Watt being the first in 1962 after a 42-year term. Another, William Shand, left in 1964 left after having served a 44-year term, the longest standing Hamilton board member. According to an old HWC employee, these board members left after Hain’s involvement as they did not approve of Hain’s borrowing money to pay dividends. When the HWC acquired Standard Time in 1961 for its inexpensive Vantage line of watches. This was contrary to the HWC longstanding practice of elevating quality over quantity. Through Sinkler’s leadership, the quality of Hamilton watches in the early 60’s took a steep dive: dials were now for the most part embossed and made of brass, not of sterling with solid gold numerals; most of the cases were made in stainless steel and rolled gold plate, micro plated, not gold filled; and most the movements were imported from Switzerland and marked “Hamilton.” You can’t blame Sinkler for staying around, he was well paid and could not fight the board as he knew he would most likely get terminated, so you can only guess he stayed as a local big shot, for the money or maybe he thought he could convince them to stop? In a 1965 Bush Terminal filing it states Art Sinkler’s aggregate remuneration was $78,100. That’s a whole hell of a lot of money in 1965 - about $780,000 in today’s dollars. An ex-employee told me in the end, the HWC was cobbling together watches with the wrong dials, hands and bands just to get stuff off the line and out to be sold. I am sure if you are a collector, you will see this in some of your watches that are new old stock, and you can’t figure out how those hands or dial got there, now you know. Anytime a business stops doing what it does best, it means the end is near. Other companies tried to take over or buy the HWC and in 1952 Benrus bought 11% of the stock of the HWC. Through extensive litigation, Hamilton was able to stop Benrus from meddling in its business and in the 1954, the HWC was able to buy back the Benrus-owned 92,200 shares, (approximately 25% of the common shares). General Time in 1964 tried to buy the Bush Terminal shares of Hamilton for $15M. The proposed transaction was called off just before signing the deal in October of 1964. In 1969 Sunbeam tried to buy the HWC for $26M, and one article stated six other companies were interested in buying the HWC as well in 1969. LET’S MOVE TO SWITZERLAND In the 1969 Annual Report, it states “a year ago, we indicated that we were planning a program to transfer watch movement manufacturing from Lancaster to Switzerland.” They actually did move, and most the employees left behind were moved over to the military production division. They also dissolved the division of Standard Time and integrated it with their watch business. Wallace Silversmiths was feeling the effects of a bad economy and was dragging down the numbers for the company. Hamilton got out of its core watch business and got into case making, fireplaces, silverware, metals, military and industrial products. While this is not a bad thing, there are several large companies today that can multi task and be profitable, but I personally think the person running the show, Art Sinkler who joined Hamilton as a low-level employee in 1936 (1936-Jobbing in T&C, 1938-Technical Testing, 1939-Inspections, 1942- Assembly, 1946-Foreman Assembly research, 1950-Manager of Defense contracts & director of quality, 1951-Director of research,1952-VP Manufacturing, 1954-president & Chairman of the board, 1971-Terminated) was a watchmaker at heart, a tooling and manufacturing genius. Art was a well-loved boss by many employees, a worker’s boss as he came up through the ranks. In my opinion he was not really a CEO or business person. When Sinkler took over, Hamilton had basically two divisions, the watch division and the Biggs Watch Case Co in Connecticut which they had just purchased. The HWC had $3.9M in debt and, when he left as president and became Chairman of the Board, the company had $6.5M in debt (1966) and $17M the following year (1967), with 6 divisions and 11 subsidiaries. Eventually things got out of control under Sinkler’s leadership and things took a steep decline. By 1967, Richard Blakinger was the President, Sinkler was Chairman of the Board, but both were not able to control Hain, as his Bush Terminal still owned over 51% of the HWC, controlled the board and Blakinger/Sinkler could not stop the senseless borrowing to pay dividends and the enormous debt increase. Hain finally met his demise and was barred entirely from the securities business by the SEC in 1968, ending his control and manipulation in Hamilton. The SEC forced Hain to sell all his holdings in the HWC. I am sure Blakinger and Sinkler were thrilled about this, but it may have been too late to save the company in my opinion. If you look at when Sinkler took over and to the end, the company grew to more than just a watch company. Sometimes expansion is not your friend, and in this case it was true. From an article in Lancaster New Era in 1990, James Guerin, a former Hamilton Employee who left the company in 1971 said “Hamilton was respected worldwide as a superior watch company, for it to stop manufacturing watches was as if General Motors stopped making cars.” Hamilton bid low on a large military contract to make portable backpack radios for the government. They bid low and felt they could make it up on other military contracts. This was a total disaster, prompting the loss of $150 to $250 per radio. Under its contract, HWC was to make 16,000 radios. In the end, the company only completed 500 and Hamilton bailed on the contract. The contract was transferred to an Indiana firm and Hamilton closed the Military Electronics division taking a loss of $6.7M, the watches and clock division took at $12.2M loss and the Fuze business lost $4.7M. To stop the bleeding, Sinkler approached the Pentagon and tried renegotiating the deal and was rebuffed according to Guerin. Guerin even tried to buy this division when he left the company in 1971. As the company faced bankruptcy, top management was replaced, some 1,350 employees were laid off when the workers took a voluntarily 10% pay cut, they had $41M in liabilities and lost $23.6M in 1970. As an aside, the watch division was responsible for 50% of the losses in 1970. THE SWISS TAKE OVER FROM HERE In November 1971 Hamilton formed a new subsidiary, partly owned by Aetos Watch, SA a wholly owned subsidiary of S.S.I.H. Aetos owned 17% of the stock of The Hamilton Watch Company, paying $920,000 in three installments, while Hamilton owned the remaining 83% of the subsidiary. An inventory note for $12.6 was created with no interest between the HWC and the HWM for bookkeeping purposes. Hamilton had changed its name from The Hamilton Watch Company to HMW, the stock trading symbol on the New York Stock Exchange and the Hamilton Watch Company became a subsidiary of it. In 1974 S.S.I.H bought the remaining 83% for $2.3M in the form of a non-interest-bearing note with the first payment being due January 31, 1977 (four years later), with equal quarterly installments thereafter for three years. The last watch was assembled in Lancaster, PA was in 1992. Today, the Hamilton Watch Company is a thriving watch company, owned by the Swatch Group of Switzerland making great entry level watches. They are excellent at marketing and using their products in movies such as Men in Black, Dune (Part II), Indiana Jones-Dial of Destiny, Interstellar, Pearl Harbor and of course Oppenheimer. They host the Behind the Camera Awards in Hollywood honoring those behind the camera, screen writers, prop masters, set directors, editors and so on. Today they manufacture and sell retro looking watches (Ventura, Khaki military, Boulton, and in the past Spur, Piping Rock and many others), an elegant line of men’s and ladies’ watches, the field Khaki leading the way with the Jazzmaster right behind them and a whole host of other beautiful watches. I wish I could tell you how many they produce a year, but the figures for yearly sales are private, closely held and not made public. I have met and spent time with two of Hamilton’s CEO’s, Sylvain Dolla who is now CEO at Tissot and the current CEO, Vivian Stauffer along with Sebastian Kearle, the customer service manager. I have to say, they are as passionate about the brand as I am. We spent several hours combing through old memorabilia, photographs, research information, prototypes and of course watches from the past, ideas and the watch markets in general. They both know the watch business, the products and both are truly amazing, kind and considerate people. This is why they are so successful at what they do. I also met and spent time with Murielle Raveloson, the brand president of Hamilton US. She is so knowledgeable about the brand and its history, and her passion for watches and this brand is without question, top of the line. When the Swiss took it over in 1974, they were just a watch company and even to this day, the Swatch Group is all about watches and movements (ETA). Today the Swatch group employs 33,500 people in over 50 countries, has 16 brands of watch and jewelry brands (Winston Jewelers), 2 retail brands, 30 production companies, 150+ production plants in Switzerland, 30+ counties with a Swatch Group organization, $7.8B in sales and a net profit of $890M. In closing, the demise was either through the expansions of Art Sinkler (20% of the blame in my opinion) or Jacob Hain’s Penn Square-Bush Terminal (80% of the blame in my opinion). This is 100% my opinion from the materials I have read. I also feel that if Hamilton just made watches of high quality, they could have survived as just a watch company as many of the other major American watch brands were out of business. Look at Patek Phillipe today, Thierry Stern the CEO of Patek said in an interview in Forbes magazine, they make 62,000 a year for worldwide consumption. The HWC in the 1949 made 658,587 watches and in 1950 made 559,875 watches. That’s a lot of watches and a large labor force to fulfill those orders, but when things turn, it’s hard to go backwards and lay off staff, go back to a lower output and go back to quality vs quantity. It’s all hindsight, but the annual reports and the numbers speak for themselves. I hope you enjoyed the article and thanks for reading. *All my data was obtained from Rene Rondeau, Timely Topics, Watch Words, Swatch Group, HWC Annual reports, NAWCC employee interviews, Lancaster New Era, Intelligencer Journal, Sunday News Revised 10/22/24. |