James Bond Watches Blog

Earlier this week, I came across a book by Russell Smith titled Men’s Style: The Thinking Man’s Guide to Dress. It’s gonna get us started on a last remaining topic key to James Bond watch identification.

One of the things that’s lost in so many of the boysterous discussions of why James Bond “must” wear this watch or that — “because Rolex is known for…,” or “Ian Fleming served in World War II as an officer attached to…” — is a basic understanding of fashion.

The Rolex Precision worn by Sean Connery for his very first “Bond, James Bond” introduction at the Chemin der Fer table in Dr No was no accident.

That can’t be true! It was an oversight, a continuity error. It must’a been Sean Connery’s personal watch. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

James Bond only should’a been wearing the Submariner!

No way. Not in 1962. Not with Terence Young directing and attentive to such details (as he clearly was).

Fifty years ago, appointing James Bond with a diver’s watch in that situation would have surpassed the worst silliness anyone might care to highlight in, say, Moonraker.

As the 1960s unfolded, diver’s watch led, rather than followed “style” choice ubiquity. Probably started when highlighted by the flame of Bond’s cigarette lighter in Goldfinger. Then Rolex advocated it as a fashion direction.

Maybe that’s why Russell Smith doesn’t express much respect for recent James Bond watch choices.

In recent years, several of the world’s most famous watchmakers have launched spectacularly expensive advertising campaigns in an effort to imbue their scientific and technical watches with the glamour of war and adventure, thereby providing the closest contact to war or adventure most men will ever have. Omega paid untold thousands to a Hollywood studio to ensure that Jamesbondman Pierce Brosnan was wearing their Seamaster Professional Divers watch in Tomorrow Never Dies continue reading…

In case there’s any doubt—

Ian Fleming created James Bond.

On January 15, 1952, at his home, Goldeneye, in Jamaica. Starting with a blank sheet of paper, it all began with these words.

The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino combine together and hit the taste-buds with an acid shock at three in the morning.

Feel free to confirm this history for yourself. You’ll find Ian Fleming’s first-draft manuscript for Casino Royale in the Lilly Library archives, Indiana University at Bloomington. That’s where I took the time to do my own original research into into this aspect of the James Bond legacy.

Elsewhere in the world, from what I’ve been seeing on the ‘net and print, tomorrow’s gonna be a big day as anniversaries of the Eon Productions 007 movies go. I’m looking forward to it.

But today, I’m remembering that it all began with Ian Fleming. Six decades ago.

With his wife-to-be, Ann.

How do you know for certain it's a James Bond watch?

Any effort to definitively identify a James Bond watch brand and model requires balance.

The more common extreme is largely uncritical, effectively wishful thinking. “I wanna believe this is a James Bond watch — voilà, it is!”

It’s the guy on the fan forum who’s already overextended in some path through Omega or Rolex. He owns it; to be wrong in having made that choice risks painting him a fool, so he just keeps insisting it is, hoping repetition will trump reality.

Bought in through impulsiveness, or a sale pitched to him as too good to be true. Add to that a dollop of ego, and he’s determined to shut out any data that conflicts with his point of view, regardless of how credentialed, substantiated, or otherwise indisputable.

Or the fella caught up in the limelight after posting “his” definitive list of James Bond watches on the Internet.

With each response of praise, he grows less able to admit that no one knows less about his own list than he does, since he actually only cut-and-pasted it from elsewhere (can’t believe no one else hasn’t seen this gem before!). Challenged to account for labeling the obvious Heuer PVD Night Dive watch featured The Living Daylights as a stainless steel Submariner, for example, he’s quick with an indignant, “Why so serious? James Bond is only a fictional character, don’cha know?”

A retort that could only be uttered by someone who knows little or nothing about watches. The sort who drones on at a fine restaurant — attempting to cover the fact that she’s grossly outclassed — grasping at straws to fit in by saying, “I could make this same dish a lot cheaper at home.”

Yeah, and the Seiko G757 “Silverwave” and “Sports 100” originally cost the same to manufacture.

Silly goose! That’s hardly the sole determining factor for valuation of wristwatches. Nor, for that matter, many other things. And it’s specious to argue that objective measures of enhanced brand value by association with “a fictional character” somehow negate that value. Just ask Tony the Tiger. Or are you gonna let a cartoon make a fool of your pontifications as well?

At the other end of the spectrum is continue reading…