hmt watch

[JayG17]

anybody heard about hmt watch before ...? 

[Nucejoe]

@AndyHull  is the hmt man, got a truck load of them, none works. 

 

[Marc]

HMT I believe stands for Hindi Machine Tool which is an Indian company, possibly government sponsored, set up in the early 1960's.

They use Citizen designed movements made under license in India and produce some fairly good budget watches.

[JayG17]

3 hours ago, Nucejoe said:

@AndyHull  is the hmt man, got a truck load of them, none works. 

 

sad for all death but good to do practicing tho 

[JayG17]

3 hours ago, Marc said:

HMT I believe stands for Hindi Machine Tool which is an Indian company, possibly government sponsored, set up in the early 1960's.

They use Citizen designed movements made under license in India and produce some fairly good budget watches.

yea I heard it too anyway this one is keeping good time 

[AndyHull]

10 hours ago, Nucejoe said:

@AndyHull  is the hmt man, got a truck load of them, none works. 

 

Not 100% accurate, at least two of them work. I may have one or two corpses spare part donors, but most of my HMTs do in fact work just fine. OK, maybe they didn't when I purchased them, but with a little TLC, they now work perfectly. 

You are just jealous that I have the yellow-est non after-market dial HMT ever created.  

[Nucejoe]

Just a bit jealous.   I like the black dial one.  If memory serves me at all, you brought back some from India, a gorgeous one of them got my vote on watch of day.

[AndyHull]

15 hours ago, JayG17 said:

anybody heard about hmt watch before ...? 

HMT watches have a long and interesting history, and  in fact you can still purchase some of their models, including some mechanical ones, but so far as I know HMT mechanical watchs are no longer in large scale production.

A brief summary of their history can be found on their web site, along with some of the current stock.

https://www.hmtwatches.in/about-us.htm

 

 

Edited August 4, 2020 by AndyHull

[yankeedog]

I Think the H stands for Hindustan.At any rate most that you buy online come from India. Some good , some not so good. They have a good case, some screw down, others snap down. buy screw down . the movement is of sound design, but the ones you buy online can be very worn.For what it's worth the movement can be directly swapped out with a carvelle 11dp. which is a japan made movement , the HMT is an India produced movement. the caravelles usually come with a case which is inferior to the HMT, but most haven't seen nearly the wear.

[timeshed]

On 8/10/2020 at 3:50 PM, yankeedog said:

I Think the H stands for Hindustan.At any rate most that you buy online come from India. Some good , some not so good. They have a good case, some screw down, others snap down. buy screw down . the movement is of sound design, but the ones you buy online can be very worn.For what it's worth the movement can be directly swapped out with a carvelle 11dp. which is a japan made movement , the HMT is an India produced movement. the caravelles usually come with a case which is inferior to the HMT, but most haven't seen nearly the wear.

Hindustan Machine and Tools

[Waggy]

For those interested in HMT Vintage Watch Services just did a service on one, see below. Must admit that the video sparked my interest so I may be on the lookout for one, after my credit card has recovered from Christmas!

@AndyHull any advice on what to look for in purchasing a HMT?

 

 

Edited January 25, 2024 by Waggy

[praezis]

The black dial HMT Pilot was (is?) a nice one. I bought many of those on my travels to India.

Frank

[AndyHull]

On 1/25/2024 at 6:37 AM, Waggy said:

@AndyHull any advice on what to look for in purchasing a HMT?

Depends what you are looking for.

Obviously the dial shouldn't look like it was painted by someone under the influence of fungal intoxicants, and the case shouldn't look polished to death. These two from my collection are most probably "after-market" dials, but the movements were perfectly serviceable. They may end up as donors if I find something interesting that needs parts.

They are pretty easy to service, and as I mentioned before, finding donor movements and parts is pretty easy, since they were produced in large numbers for many years.

Most genuine 17 jewel manual dials say something like "India 0213", and a lot of the "Mumbai Specials" have "India Made", but this distinction doesn't guarantee anything, as it is presumably easy for the "reconditioners" to print whatever they like on the dial.

Something you may not be aware of, HMT seems to have gone back into limited production of mechanical watches. These new models have different names from the older versions, but look to be very similar otherwise.

Take a look on their web site, and as well as the not so inspiring quartz watches they have been showing for a couple of years, there are now a fair number of manual and automatic models. 

I'll need to look in to where these are being produced, as presumably at least one of the former production facilities has been brought out of mothballs. My suspicion is that production has been restarted at the Banaglore site.
(Auxiliary Business Division, Jalahalli, Bengaluru), but if you really want to know what is going on, fire them an email. All of the contact details are on the website.

https://www.hmtwatches.in/product_details?id=eyJpdiI6IlRxZ3dwL2tqTHpTZ29qZktUSDdjN1E9PSIsInZhbHVlIjoiK3pnSGFmZWpoOTBtU2xvTFo2ZlU5UT09IiwibWFjIjoiNDFlOWIxYTZhOTVhOTNlOWYxZDExYzI0MDE1M2I3MmQ0NDgzZjBmMTU5ZGNkYzZhNmNkNjc4MjE0NWI2ODE0MyIsInRhZyI6IiJ9

 

 

Edited January 28, 2024 by AndyHull

[mbwatch]

I have had a handful in and out of my collection. If you are looking around ebay, the Kohinoor line seems to be the most consistently genuine, and also consistently in the best condition. When looking at the lower end (low end as in $18 instead of high end $35), you will find some of the Pilot line with an applied logo and applied numerals on the dial. Those are the ones to watch for. Any of the painted dials as described:

On 1/28/2024 at 5:22 AM, AndyHull said:

Obviously the dial shouldn't look like it was painted by someone under the influence of fungal intoxicants

Steer clear. They will likely be generic dial blanks with a terrible paint job which have just been stuck onto the movement with dial dots. They often have no dial feet, or feet not matched to the HMT0231 movement. Though I will say some of their more creative dial designs are fun and clever.

But WORD OF CAUTION if you service one! Both the crown wheel and ratchet wheel screws are left hand thread, while neither will indicate as much. And the metal is very soft, thus it is super easy to shear the head off the ratchet wheel screw when attempting to loosen it to the left.