Hamilton Top Hat - Vintage-Hamilton-Wristwatches

On the Road with a Special Hamilton
George Kennedy’s story of a love affair with the brand

Top Hat

My Grandfather, George Kennedy, came to love Hamilton watches by way of South Bend watches and Studebaker cars. From the time he was a young man he was drawn to the sensual lines and gritty power of a Studebaker motor car. Driving one of their fine automobiles whether a Coup, Golden Hawk, or Avanti he always felt his very best.

This love led to an interest in another part of the prolific Studebaker family business, the South Bend watch company. Makers of fine American Pocket Watches from the same time Studebaker was still making wagons instead of cars, South Bend was known for it Railroad Grade pieces and Grandpa loved collecting them. A watch he highly prizes to this day is one of the few wristwatches they made while they were still being produced in the USA.

As with any mechanical watch, this wristwatch needed the decade or so cleaning and oiling so he took it to his local watchmaker who at the time was working on a 770 22 Jewel Hamilton. The craftsman was enthusing over the fine engineering that went in to the Hamilton movement’s design and how this made the watch such a pleasure to overhaul. Always someone to appreciate carefully made and well designed machines, just like his favorite Studebakers, George began collecting Hamilton 770 movement watches. Though his tendency towards being a hoarder pushed him to buying over 100 982 movement Hamilton watches while on his quest to find the more rare 770.

Over time he grew to love a full range of Hamilton watches, with the 982M being his favorite as he found it most often in solid gold cases.

Flash was always rounded out the trifecta of engineering and design for my Grandpa. And while he didn’t begin collecting them until the 1960’s, which his South Bend needed cleaning, he was destined to love them. In fact, in 1949 while en route back to Denver from serving in Korea he saw one in the window of a jewelry store in San Francisco. White Gold, Art Deco rectangular case with a bone white dial and diamonds set in the 12, 3, and 9 hour markers- he was in love.

Shown on a leather strap, this watch had the flash he needed but far exceeded the money he had in his pocket being it was $600 and he only made $95 a month. A young man from a poor family on his way back from war would just have to wait to own that watch. And he did, after 20 years of collecting Hamiltons and gaining friends in the jewelry business, he came across the watch again. This time it was attached to an Art Deco 14k White Gold strap by Longines, one of Hamilton’s biggest competitors. Gorgeously matched and a huge buyer of solid gold watch straps he snapped up this watch and after nearly 40 years it was his.

Top Hat & Gold Band

My own storied love for Hamilton- Ian Kennedy, age 30

I remember first seeing that very watch while I spent time with Grandpa George and Grandma Ruby in their small Antique and American Indian Art Store in Hudson, Colorado as a child. Ruby would stack Navajo blankets behind the counter for me to nap on when I got tired and I would spend the afternoons staring at all the beautiful works of art they offered the rural town 30 miles north of Denver that I was raised near.

In the back stood a 6 foot tall antique safe with double doors and a oil painting on the front. Grandpa would spin the cylinder expertly and crack open the doors to revel his box of gold watches. Never offered out in the open to the customers, but for the right buyer he would extract the Xerox paper box full of Hamilton watches for one to peruse. The boxes a opaque grey, each one holding a shining pieces of history and American craft at its best.

I would thumb through the some 100 or so that he had at that time admiring the Rose or White Gold cases, bright dials, and mysteriously complicated movements. Ever a clumsy child, I was often cautioned by Grandpa George not to drop them as the stem inside could break and require an expensive repair.

One day I discovered George’s prized white gold and diamond dial Hamilton tank and I was forever enamored. The silky metal, the handsome masculinity, the weight on my wrist, I knew I had to have it just like my Grandfather knew 50 years before me. I let him know how much I loved it and he agreed but he had another interesting quirk to his personality–no matter how much he loved something, if you offered him enough money he would sell it to you.

This happened when I was about 14–he sold this amazing watch. Thankfully it was sold to a friend and I complained so bitterly he ended up buying it back for just $100 more than he had sold it for. Not long after, I received from him my first vintage watch, a 14k Yellow Gold Hamilton Donald with a leather strap. I wore that watch to school every day for the rest of my high school experience and loved the feeling of winding and setting it each morning.

My love for Hamilton’s only grew from there and I knew I had to convince Grandpa to give me the white gold beauty we both loved. So, a deal was struck: if I achieved Valedictorian of my high school class the watch would be mine. Not a far stretch as I has always been at the top of my class, this goal was made even more vital by the prize placed on it. But I ended up losing by .01 percent to a former friend of mine who I always had considered to have cheated to beat me.

You see she had a very poor semester where she didn’t even show up for most of her classes, but by being very close friend with some of her teachers she was able to negotiate better grades than she deserved. No matter, I gave the Salutatorian speech at graduation and renegotiated the watch to be a College graduation present instead. I’d have to wait four more years to get it, but I know that Hamilton would be mine. And now that I it is mine, I pledge to always own it.

I now have over 10 solid gold watches, half of them being Hamilton, and the rest being Jules Jergenson, Corton, and Omega. My love for watches has grown into a profession for me as I now sell watches, American Indian art and jewelry online via a shop named for my Grandparents. My passion for design, quality, and beauty follows strongly from the things I saw and the knowledge I learned from Grandma Ruby and Grandpa George and I honor their legacy.

I began that journey by starting a shop on Etsy called Kennedyhandmade & Vintage. Grandpa George also taught me the skills of jewelry making, showing me to mill and solder gold and silver while in college. I took these skills and after graduating with a Studio Art degree in Photography from the University of Colorado at Boulder I saved up and moved to Madrid, Spain to craft my own designs and market them to the European market.

I even visited France and Italy during the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy and was able to sell handmade chains, sapphire wrapped pendants, and semi-precious gemstone earrings to the people I met along the way. I also made friends with other jewelers in Madrid and worked with them in my workshop apartment to hone the skills my Grandfather gave to me.

I then returned to the US and after a few years in the Corporate world, I decided I had to return to my passion of design. My Grandparents business had been closed nearly a decade, as Ruby was killed in a car accident in 1990 and George became too ill to manage the store on his own my Senior year in college.

On my Christmas break from school while he was in the hospital, I had one last big 50% off sale (and sold over $20k in product in one week). Then we boxed up everything that was left, which was still quite an impressive pile and those things went untouched until I decided to revitalize their business. So I began photographing, describing, and measuring their stock for listing online. Starting with the watches, I found more interest than I expected for the gold filled and stainless steel pieces that I was offering. Omegas, Hamiltons, and Longines began to sell well and to customers from Australia, to Italy and Hong Kong.

I began formulating more ways to market the items my family had spent most of their lives finding at garage sales and flea markets and I am determined to make the business thrive like it never has before. After a year and a half on Etsy, and selling over $25k in product I was ready to launch Ruby + George. This high-end online boutique was conceptualized as a place for the very best of what my Grandparents had collected and the items would be marketed in a unique manner- through a fictional couple loosely based on the original Ruby and George Kennedy.