James Bond Watches Blog

This last installment from the Life magazine timeline, “James Bond watches and the Quartz Revolution,” gives us two new watchmakers — and two new actors in the role.

On June 29, 1987, Timothy Dalton made his first appearance as James Bond in the Eon Productions 007 film, The Living Daylights. For the sixth consecutive installment in a row, the James Bond watch here was a quartz.

Actually, both of them were quartz models.

For additional context, images from the Life magazine archives are indexed into this timeline, featuring Octopussy Bond-girl as she looked post-Bond in 1988, and The Spy Who Loved Me Bond-girl Barbara Bach, post-Bond, the following year.

The next and final quartz James Bond watch, then, was the Omega 2541.80 Seamaster that introduced Pierce Brosnan as Our Man in GoldenEye (1995).

Images available through Life online featuring Mr Brosnan through this period were not available.

However (and it must be remembered when reading this that I think Pierce Brosnan was a fantastic James Bond), in looking at Timothy Dalton in the 1991 and 2003 images, there is no doubt that he could have effectively portrayed Agent 007 on the big screen for a number of films beyond Licence to Kill.

Again, in addition to the screen captures provided on this James Bond Watches Blog, the entire “James Bond Watches and the Quartz Revolution” Timeline can be seen live on the Life website (including animated images of selected watch models from sponsor Rolex, correct to the viewer’s own time zone).

Sponsored by Rolex