Made by Seiko Group Corporation, mid-1970s
Model DK001 uniquely identified this James Bond watch, housed in case number 0674-5009 [1-3]. This squarish timekeeper was always worn on its model-associated B273 stainless steel bracelet. Time was displayed digitally: Hours, minutes, and running seconds. The case and display printed graphics had bits of color: Gold for make and model description, and Sunday shown in red along an otherwise black, fixed day-of-week bar. Always-visible time displayed digitally, with running seconds.
See link to “Exclusive Images,” below.
James Bond’s Watch
Screen-worn wristwatches were provided by Seiko through its United Kingdom subsidiary. Seiko Watches was specifically acknowledged among a limited number of partners on The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) credit roll. Additionally, James Bond Watches was exclusively provided with documentation dated April 30, 2010 from Mark Mills, FBHI, of Seiko UK, definitively identifying this wristwatch as the movie timekeeper.
The Seiko Quartz LC displayed time as five or six numbers: The first one or two for hours, separated by a colon from the second two for minutes, then two more at a smaller scale for running seconds. When all were activated, the first showed a “1,” and the others showed rectilinear “8” digits. Each segment, then was made up of a single liquid crystal display (LCD) bar.
There does not appear to be any serious controversy with regard to the model or markings on this James Bond watch or about its appearance in canon.
As Seen in the Movie
Worn on-screen by Roger Moore as Agent 007 in EON Productions motion picture, The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
“Gadget Watch”
Incoming message printer
During a mission in Austria, James Bond received a message through his watch that read, “007 to Report HQ. Immediate M.” This looked to have been embossed onto silver DYMO label stock with white lettering [4], pulled from between the wristwatch case and bracelet endlink on the 12 o’clock end. In his autobiography, This was the only James Bond watch mentioned by Albert R Broccoli in his biography; he described described it as a wristwatch “which fed out ticker-tape messages from M” [5].
The watch shown in close-up for this sequence displayed the time at 4:00:05 pm, with Thursday highlighted as day-of-week. It ran continuously throughout, until 4:00:11 pm.
Development / Technical / Retail
With improved accuracy as raison d’être for the quartz crystal oscillator [6], the DK001 was an ideal choice to showcase this with its always-on six-digit display. Consumer desire for electronic display of information that had started in the late-1960s was continuing to increase, and Seiko was determined to leverage this through its wristwatch offerings; having departed from the then more common dynamic scattering mode (DSM) [7] approach to numeral switching in favor of improving upon nascent Field Effect Mode (FEM), its wristwatches could display fractional seconds-place changes at refresh rates that exceeded human perception [8-9].
Just a handful of years after Pulsar II debuted as a James Bond watch in Live and Let Die (1973), LCD replaced it for The Spy Who Loved Me (1974), “with an energy consumption during display a few thousand times lower than that of a LED watch …” [10].
As noted on page 13 of the Instructions, the Calendar function on this watch was capable of displaying years from 1976 to 2009. For those who would like their Seiko Quartz LC James Bond watches to display the correct month, day, and date, while tolerating inaccuracy in the year field, resources are available online for setting this watch via equivalent years [11].
User Instructions
See “Seiko Quartz: Digital Type Cal 0674 – Instructions.”
Wristwatch caliber 0674 was powered by a single coin cell 386 “button” battery (or equivalent), recommended to “be replaced after each full year of use.”
No water resistance claims of any sort were made by its watchmaker, and none should be assumed (despite the watch having been worn throughout both the submarine-converted Lotus sequences underwater and on the Wetbike ridden to final confrontation with Karl Stromberg.
Scrutiny
James Bond Watches displayed a fully screen-correct 007 Seiko Quartz LC DK001 at the National Watch & Clock Museum twice, for extended periods and accessible to visitors for viewing as part of regular paid admission. The first, the “Bond Watches, James Bond Watches” exhibition, ran June 18, 2010 through April 30, 2011. Text on the two-of-hearts playing card-styled descriptive label read as follows.
Cross-promotions with this movie positioned ‘quartz’ on par with the watchmaker: The technology itself still had to be advocated. Liquid crystal display, ‘field-effect modulation’ type. A spy’s watch needed constantly to show the time — down to the second.
Original authentication documentation from Mr Mills was displayed with the three Seiko UK models featured on the wrist of Agent 007 in A View to a Kill [12].
A screen-correct reference was last displayed at the Museum of Time as part of the James Bond Wore the Quartz Revolution gallery, May 26, 2015 through February 22, 2024.
— Dell Deaton
Updated: March 27, 2025
April 21, 2008
off-site
Exclusive Images
- “Seiko DK001 [0674-5009] Quartz LC” / Dell Deaton (Pro) Flickr Album (accessed March 18, 2025).
References
- “Last member of James Bond watch team retires from Seiko UK: Part 1” / August 3, 2010 / Dell Deaton / James Bond Watches Blog (via Internet Archive, accessed June 11, 2024).
- “Last Member of James Bond watch team retires from Seiko UK: Part 2.”
- “‘Bond Watches, James Bond Watches’ Gallery” / May 2, 2011 / Dell Deaton (Pro) / Flickr (accessed March 14, 2025).
- “DYMO Organizer Xpress Pro Embossing Label Maker Kit” / DYMO (accessed March 18, 2025).
- When the Snow Melts: The Autobiography of Cubby Broccoli / 1998 / Albert R Broccoli with Donald Zec (page 248; Boxtree: London).
- A Journey in Time. The Remarkable Story of Seiko / 2003 / John Goodall / Seiko Watch Corporation (pages 54-55 ; Japan).
- Watch: History of the Modern Wristwatch — Design 1950 – 1983, Electric 1950 – 1993 / 1994 / Pieter Doensen / 1994 (page 164; Snoeck-Ducaju & Zoon: The Netherlands).
- A Journey in Time (pages 57, 59, and 62-63).
- Mr Liquid Crystal: The Untold Story of How James L Ferguson Invented the Liquid Crystal Display & Helped Create the Digital World / 2016 / Terri Ferguson Neal and Marian Pierce / New Insights Press (pages 66-71; Los Angeles).
- Watch (page 156).
- “Years with Same Calendar as …” / Time and Date (accessed March 27, 2025).
- “‘Bond Watches, James Bond Watches’ Gallery” / May 2, 2011 / Dell Deaton (Pro) Flickr (accessed March 26, 2025).