James Bond Watches Blog

Not including the original from the 2003 Christie’s auction, that is.

To recap: This past Thanksgiving Day weekend, a credible source appeared on Twitter in response to a post made by Hodinkee about its report that Matthew Bain, Inc., had purchased and now continues to own the screen-worn James Bond Rolex 6238 Chronograph from the movie, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (Eon Productions, 1969).

That story, “So— is it ‘the’ George Lazenby James Bond Chronograph, or not?” appeared on this James Bond Watches Blog on November 28, 2011.

You can also read about my own follow-up to the Hodinkee story, including reports from my own interview with Matt Bain, posted here on September 29, 2010.

As part of that, Mr Bain kindly provided me with high-resolution photographs of this Rolex 6238 pre-Daytona Chronograph. Those half-dozen-plus images can be found here on the September 29, 2010, post. Let’s call this “Photo Set #1.”

Then, as the current controversy broke, I received a photograph said to be of the Rolex 6238 sold by Christie’s on December 16, 2003, via Sale number 9771, Lot 164. That photo was published here on this James Bond Watches Blog on December 16, 2003. It was taken by a customer of the “euro-collector” shortly after the Christie’s sale. Recall that Christie’s listed its case number (serial number) as 1206613.

Label this: “Photo Set #2.”

Assuming both claims are true— the Christie’s watch would have to have been sold first to the euro-collector. Then the euro-collector would have to have sold it, either (a) to woman’s father who has passed away, or (b) to someone who then subsequently (or through some chain of transactions) sold it to the woman’s father.

(Although reasonable people will easily follow this, feel free to nit-pick use of the word “sale” by suggesting the transaction might have been made by barter, gift, et cetera.)

The problem we have with the above rendition at this point in our research is that there is a thread on Vintage Rolex Forum (“VRF”) referencing an eBay auction for a Rolex 6238 Chronograph. (See discussion in my November 28, 2011, post.) That writer’s contributions to that discussion appear to be both independent of any ties to either Matthew Bain or the euro-collector.

In following up on this, I asked him to provide me with the photos he received as part of his own due diligence as he, at the time, had considered purchasing the eBay 6238 Rolex. Recall that that auction was for a Chronograph with serial number 1206613, which the VRF participant noted as the same case number referenced by Christie’s in its own auction of the George Lazenby / James Bond On Her Majesty’s Secret Service pre-Daytona.

See “Photo Set #3,” below, in which one image clearly shows 1206613 as the case number.

Also notice the second image, said to be another view of the same Rolex 6238 Chronograph watch. The large register-hand is black, not red — as the Christie’s auction photos for the George Lazenby James Bond Rolex Chronograph / On Her Majesty’s Secret Service lot showed in 2003.

That puts things in a place where both stories cannot be true.

But for those looking to have this neatly wrapped up by New Year’s Eve, you’re gonna have to wait a while longer.

Much as I thought in 2009 that the guy who surfaced with the bizarre, and obviously self-serving delusion of an early 1950s Rolex Explorer in order to promote his own wristwatch-related interests after my discovery of the Fleming-Bond watch was published in WatchTime, had set the bar high, the claims and counter-claims I’m hearing on the Lazenby-Bond watch have overtaken that like a train passing a post. Each side appears to have staked absolute position. No room for compromise. No allowance for honest mistake in assessment.

In several cases, it’s been suggested that I “declare a winner” now. Move more quickly. (No lesson learned, I guess, from the guy on the watch forum who was more interested in being “first” to identify another On Her Majesty’s Secret Service Rolex, based, I still chuckle to remember, upon measurements taken from a photo posted on the Internet of a painting!)

I had the Fleming-Bond watch identified well-over a year before my WatchTime article appeared. And, as I wrote earlier this week here on the James Bond Watches Blog, the trust of my readers is why what we do here has emerged as peerless.

See you all back here next year!