One Year Since Hamilton v Vortic
This Friday is the one year anniversary of our court date with the Swatch Group in New York City. On February 19th, 2020 we successfully defended ourselves in Federal Court against the world's largest watch conglomerate and protected our right to turn pocket watches into wristwatches during the landmark case Hamilton v Vortic.
To celebrate this victory one year later we've built a replica to R.T.'s personal Lancaster watch that we call the Victory Watch. The Lancaster 001 was called Exhibit I at trial and was handed to the judge for her to inspect during R.T.'s testimony. The Lancaster 065 is the closest we could get to replicating it since each watch is unique, and it's a truly special watch.
Click the button below to learn more about the trademark lawsuit through our national TV news story.
We decided to pick this special occasion to mark the anniversary of winning our court case against Hamilton watches by setting aside a truly unique antique Hamilton pocket watch.
This dial is one of a kind with a gorgeous sunburst gold design in the background, as well as raised gold numerals. We went all out with a machined bronze case and gold-plated crown to top it off.
The 23 Jewel Masterpiece movement is very rare and is the extra detail that takes this watch to the next level. Hamilton made 2,000 movements engraved with this special Masterpiece marking. This movement is one of them and is from the same production run as Exhibit I.
Located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the original Hamilton Watch Company produced some of the highest quality pocket watches in the USA. They operated continuously from 1892 to 1969 and maintained over half of the market share of Railroad grade pocket watches. In the early 1970s, the holding company that eventually became the Swatch Group, purchased the defunct company and makes watches today in Switzerland under the Hamilton brand.
By winning the Hamilton v Vortic lawsuit we successfully protected our right to convert antique Hamilton pocket watches into modern Vortic wristwatches. You'll be seeing a lot more of these Lancaster model watches as we grow!
We are working very hard to scale up our production and make more watches. We appreciate you giving us some time to catch up, and we can't wait to have more inventory. Unfortunately, we need more time... (no pun intended).
The Watch of the Day program (5 watches per week) is expected to come back very soon. We'll keep you posted, and we'll keep making at least one watch weekly!
