Hamilton Pan Europ

With Hamilton's trademark minimalist elegant style

Description:

This Hamilton Paneurop was introduced in 1955 just as the Space Age began and along with it the shift to electric watches. This watch, therefore, could be seen as an example of the high point of automatic watch production and design.

To put this into perspective, just two years later, in 1957, Hamilton was to introduce the world's first electric watch and for the next twenty five years, the world's attention veered away from automatic watches to electric watches, electronic watches, tuning fork watches, and quartz watches. Still, throughout all of this, automatic watches have continued to be popular throughout the 1960s 1970s and into modern times due to their elegrance and practicality.

1956 Hamilton Automatic Advertisement - "You drive with automatic transmission..."

The mimimalist dial on this watch with its horizontal and vertical crosshairs is typical Hamilton. The case features an elegant "TV" shaped case that blends between a square and a circle and echos its time as television first became a part of into modern life.

The Hamilton watch company is well known for their high quality of manufacture and elegant style. Some refer to Hamilton as the "Patek Phillipe" of American watchmakers. The definition of an American watchmaker is not entirely clear, however, since Hamilton manufactured many of their movements in Switzerland. All of Hamilton's automatic waches contained Swiss movements.

Not much information is available about these Hamiltons. The "Paneurop" label encompassed an entire line of watches rather than just a single design and "Paneurop" labelled watches continued into the 1960s.

Condition:

Case: Very good.
The case is in quite good conition with no significant scratches or loss of plating. The case back has a few marks from careless opening and closing.

Face / Hands: Good.
The dial has a fine linen like texture and looks quite nice. There are a few errant dust specks. The gold hands show some faint signs of corrosion and areas where the lume is slightly aged.

Crystal: Excellent.
The acrylic crystal is excellent with no visible scuffs or scratches.

Band / Bracelet: Very good.
The soft leather band shows some wear but is in fine condition. However, it is not original to this watch.

Function / Accuracy: Excellent.
This watch sets smoothly and runs perfectly. The fine Hamilton movement winds easily and needs amazingly little motion to keep itself going. Just picking up the watch is enough to start it running again.