The Hamilton 9965, the 6B of Confusing Fall Warblers.
Myron Erickson
The Confusing Fall Warbler…
Regular readers will know that I love collecting the 33 mm Hamilton field watch in all its amazing variety. I know of no other watch that has existed in such an array of variants and persisted for so long. I guess maybe the Omega Speedmaster would qualify? But you’d have to be a bazillionaire to afford a complete collection of every LE, every variation, and every reference of Speedmaster that Omega has produced over the years. Not so the humble little Hamilton, where what the collector primarily requires is time and attention, not buckets of money in addition to time and attention. These Hamiltons had an interesting life from the mid-1960’s to the mid-1990’s and offer unique opportunities for collectors to indulge their proclivity. I refer to my collection as the Confusing Fall Warblers, and if you’d like to catch up on past articles, so far I’ve…
Introduced the concept here, in my very first post;
Discovered the rare Aussie MIL-W-46374A;
Added a thin-font GG-W-113 and Orvis variant to the collection;
Showed you the Brookstone and über-rare blue anchor-dialed Bean watch;
Found what I thought was the rarest of all, the Avirex-branded watch;
And finally found what I thought would be the last two 9219’s I didn’t have, the Brigade Quartermaster and the Khaki Mate.
Well, it just goes to show you that the work of a true collector is never done, because I recently happened upon a watch I’d only seen referred to, but never even seen pictures of, a Confusing Fall Warbler in the guise of a Hamilton 6B.
The Hamilton 9965, the platypus of Hamilton field watches.
The Hamilton 6B.
I used to own a dandy 6B, and, in fact, when I think about it now I’m not even sure why I ever sold it, other than that why-do-I-own-all-these-watches? impulse that strikes many of us from time to time. I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t love to own an exceptional specimen again, but even average condition Hamilton 6B’s go for silly money today so I don’t think it’s likely to happen.
The Hamilton 6B. Note the outstanding lume plots on this specimen. Image compliments of David Witt (@Walkaround on MWR).
So much has been written about the Hamilton 6B that I’m not able to add anything original to the story. For our purposes today, what you need to know is its basic form factor:
A 37-ish mm, round, Calatrava-like case;
Black dial with 1-12 Arabic numerals and triangle marker under the cardinal index at 12;
Characteristic narrow sword and pencil handset;
Robust movement (hacking in one variant, non-hacking in another);
And the telltale detail, the “railroad track” minutes race around the outer edge of the dial.
The Hamilton 6B, industrial design perfection. Note the shape of the pheon on the caseback. Image courtesy of @Billy Casper on MWR.
This latter detail is really the thing that says “British” pilot’s or field watch compared to archetypical American pilot’s and field watches. You will hear the Hamilton 6B referred to as the “poor man’s IWC Mk 11,” which, whatever… I think they might have both been built to the same specifications in fulfillment of the same government contract, explaining the comparison. But fans of classic British mil watches will also tell you that the Smiths W10 and the Omega “53” share the same basic design language and served some of the same units in Her Majesty’s military. Ironically, perhaps, the IWC Mk 11 does not have the railroad track dial.
The Hamilton 9721 in LL Bean guise. A Rover Haven favorite.
The 6B of Confusing Fall Warblers.
Regardless, the Hamilton 6B is an extremely cool watch worthy of your time and attention, which is no doubt why Hamilton came back to its basic formula in the form of the reference 9721 in the early 1990’s. I suppose we could consider the 9721 a Poor Man’s 6B, making it an Even Poorer Man’s Mk11? No, I suppose not. My love of the 9721 is well-documented, but the watch we’re discussing today is the reference 9965, which appears to be a 9415 dressed up in classic 6B guise and named the “Khaki Standard Military.” I think Hamilton must’ve sold it at the same time as the 9721, although the catalog page I have that features the 9965 also identifies the watch that appears to be the 9721 as a reference 8751. I have never, ever, seen a Hamilton 6B-alike with the reference number 8751. Please get in touch if you know the answer to this Hamilton mystery.
Hamilton Khaki catalog from 1992. The Khaki Standard Military, reference 9965, seen far right upper watch.
The dial: So far so good. Let’s start with the dial, the standout feature of this watch with its railroad track minutes race, equilateral triangle under the cardinal index at 12, and of course, the pheon or broad arrow mark above the 6. The pheon has a long shaft, which always looks a little weird to me, but in fact it’s not as long as the one on the caseback of the Australian-issued MIL-W-46374A. The Hamilton word mark is the Art Deco one, neither my favorite nor the one they used on the real 6B. Seems like they could’ve gotten this right pretty easily, and used the Jet Age italicized word mark.
Caseback of the Aussie MIL-W-46374A. Note the long, skinny pheon.
The handset: Now just wait a gosh darned minute here… The handset is standard Hamilton 9415 stuff, which is a small bummer since it clashes with the dial’s classic 6B details, to my eye at least. I would’ve much rather they used a 6B-style handset with sword hour hand, pencil minutes hand, and needle seconds hand. Obviously this would’ve been too expensive, and let’s be honest here, we’re not talking haute horology when we’re discussing the Hamilton 9415.
The 9965 (L) utilized the handset of the standard 9415 (R). Note the creamy tritium fully lumed dial of the 9965.
The case. The case is also right out of the 9415 parts bin, with drilled lugs and an 18 mm strap width, making it possible to use so-called shoulderless strap bars. I put a pair of Marathon strap bars in mine to help further the 6B illusion, and of course the standard 18 mm strap width means the world is your oyster for strap choices. Here is where we pause in gratitude, remembering the gazillions of Hamilton 9219’s that were produced with the awkward 11/16” lug width. It’s the little things in life…
The 9965 features drilled lugs, unsigned crown, and groovy hi-dome plexi crystal.
The caseback: Wait, what’s this? And now, flipping the watch over, we discover the real Easter Egg of this little watch. Rather than the standard 9415 markings I was expecting, Hamilton went out of their way to give us a MIL-W-esque treat. On an issued Hamilton, the manufacturer part number is either 39988 (in the case of the MIL-W-46374B) or 39986 (in the case of the MIL-W-46374D and the GG-W-113). The former identifies a cheaper, less accurate movement of lower spec, so if you’re shopping for a vintage issued Hamilton, keep this in mind.
Casebacks of MIL-W-46374B (L) and GG-W-113 (R). Note the slightly but critically different Mfg Part No’s.
Casebacks of the ref 9965 (L) and 9415 (R). This was a very nice touch on Hamilton’s part.
On our Confusing Fall Warbler 6B, the manufacturer part number is given as 9965, which is in fact Hamilton’s reference number for this watch, which we can clearly see in their catalog from that time. There are some other numbers here as well, which I strongly suspect are BS and signify nothing. Finally, Hamilton has supplied the equivalent of a contract date, Jan 1992. I love the caseback treatment, and the whole package just makes me wish Hamilton would come back to the 6B formula and build us a real reissue in 37-38 mm size. Perhaps there is hope, since they have very successfully released both the Khaki Field Mechanical (a 38 mm dateless field watch à la the MIL-W-46374, GG-W-113, FAPD 5101, et al) and the Khaki Pilot Pioneer (a reissue of their original tonneau-cased W10) recently.
L to R: Hamilton references 9965, 9415, 9219
One last observation to make, which is that the Hamilton 9965, which is really just a dressed up 9415, appeared in the catalog next to the 9219 Khaki. I had always assumed that the 9415 replaced the 9219, but in this case they seem to have co-existed. So perhaps this is evidence of when the transition from 9219 to 9415 happened, in 1992 or thereabouts. I bought my Hamilton 9965 from Zaf Basha of Classic Watch. Zaf is a true gentleman and veritable font of military watch knowledge, so if you haven’t visited Classic Watch, you should.
This concludes my article on the Hamilton 9965, the 6B of Confusing Fall Warblers. Do you have a Hamilton 6B? I love hearing from other enthusiasts and welcome your comments and factual corrections. Thanks for reading.