{ Why James Bond watches are important™

Who cares what kind of wristwatch is worn by a made-up character?

It’s an often heard question and an important one. As a reasonable, foundational line of inquiry, it falls somewhere below Why watches in the first place? — as opposed to rather indulging expenditures on automobiles or travel. More pointedly, as a center for “collecting,” Why not coins or stamps or paintings?

FRAMEWORK FOR INTEREST

“James Bond” hit-the-ground-running with first introduction by Ian Fleming of the character in the 1953 novel Casino Royale [1]. Eighteen months later an adaptation of that thriller appeared as an episode of a prime-time anthology on a major American television network [2]. In 1956, he wrote his own 150-page “film treatment” for his own third book, Moonraker [3].

An apogee of sorts was reached when then-United States Senator John F Kennedy became a fan and later invited Mr Fleming to his Georgetown home [4]; after Mr Kennedy had gone on to become thirty-fifth President of the United States, he famously listed the 1957 From Russia, with Love among his ten favorite reads [5].

Ian Fleming wrote at a pace from 1952 onward that resulted in publication of a new James Bond book every year through the end of his life (plus two). Near the end, EON Productions overlapped with its motion picture releases beginning in 1962 with Dr No, then continuing on through present day. As of 2021 and the premier of No Time to Die, all told, “James Bond” had run sixty-eight years.

In 2015, the London School of Marketing estimated the character brand value at £13 billion [6]. Three years later, a national tracking poll conducted by Morning Consult and The Hollywood Reporter found that 94.5% of all (adult) respondents had at least “heard of” James Bond, and that 74.1% had watched “all” or “some” of the movies in the franchise [7].

Additionally, 73.4% of all (adult) respondents surveyed had a “Very favorable” or “Somewhat favorable” impression of the James Bond movie series [8].

That’s the “hook.”

"OBVIOUS" PLACES TO START

Timelines and storylines of James Bond character adventures — both individually, and often, taken as the whole of a franchise — represent a singularly invaluable means of accessing myriad aspects of personal timekeeping evolution. The following approaches to content area classification slicing are proffered by way of opening consideration of substantive possibilities.

— Diver’s: For technical prowess and for elegance

Ian Fleming wrote the first diver’s watch onto the wrist of Agent 007 as part of his original manuscript for Live and Let Die, completed by end-of-March 1953. This was well-before the Submariner had come about, suggesting consideration of a Radiomir model via known collaboration between watchmakers Panerai and Rolex as the actual “Rolex” referent in that novel. With that would come an invitation to explore the relevant tangent of development en route to the fictional World War II surplus from which the Radiomir had likely come, the era of diver’s watches sans timing bezels and the days when depth ratings in the double-digits qualified as “waterproof” for diving.

Fast forward a quarter-century, and the specialized watch with which James Bond had been provided for his salvage work on the sunken St George’s wreck held a 600-meter rating, housed in titanium, made in Japan. Seiko had dedicated seven years to the single-minded development of professional piece “designed from the outset for saturation diving,” launching no new models models in the meantime.

The “advertisement” value of this product placement was not in any lovingly filmed closeup; rather, it came in seeing what was endured in its time on-screen, then leaning after that this was the watch that had been worn through all of that in For Your Eyes Only.

As of No Time to Die, James Bond had worn diver’s watches (off and on) for sixty-seven years. Four different brands made contributions to the list in EON Productions motion pictures.

In 1962, a Gruen dress watch provided stark contrast between personal life and mission demands that were readily answered by a mid- to late 1950s Rolex Submariner. Decades later, fashion columnist Russell Smith noted that “Victorian gentlemen hid their watches in their pockets, because a true gentleman didn’t concern himself with the passing of time. The same is true today …. The most elegant watches … are the simplest and plainest. … not a chunky Rolex” [9].

Yet, by the third movie, two years later, Agent 007 wore that same diver’s watch with a white dinner jacket and cufflinks in Goldfinger. And that was seemingly all it took for Rolex to come out with its famous advertisement that featured a Reference 5513 Submariner worn with black tie attire and copy that read: “It’s the official watch for divers of the Royale Navy [10,11].

How come it’s seen so much where the wettest thing around is a dry martini?

By 1985, Our Man was shown in Paris at the Eiffel Tower for A View to a Kill, wearing a trademark tuxedo appointed with a Seiko Diver’s 150m, featuring a six-digit secondary digital screen, alarm, and rubber strap. Before decade end, producers upped the ante yet again, when James Bond, was shown to have himself chosen, on his personal time, a stainless steel diver’s wristwatch as part of his morning dress wedding attire, seen throughout the Licence to Kill pre-title sequence.

— Radioactive dials: Into darkness, then back again

There was no “gadget watch” in the EON Productions Dr No, nor any timekeeper that might even remotely be considered exotic. Both issues were well-established releases, and had been readily available for consumer purchase during most of the decade prior to the 1962 premier of this film. And yet his watch was somehow made to seem so, in the scene where James Bond tested the sensitivity of a Geiger counter that had been sent to by moving its wand about the Submariner that he wore in Jamaica.

The luminous dial activates it.

“Radium-226” (226Ra) was the core element of that James Bond reference. It had been discovered by Pierre and Marie Curie in the handful of years leading up to 1900 [12], and was determined to have a half-life of 1,600 years. During the first quarter of the Twentieth Century, radium was widely heralded for its “healing properties,” and “the popular understanding of radium was that it was beneficial” [13]. It had also proven indispensable as the preferred base material for use on wristwatch (and numerous other instrument) dials that needed to be read in the dark; by the end of World War I, its production and application were in steep ascendency.

Young women were deemed ideal hires for dial-painting work due to the typically smaller sizes of their hands for finely detailed applications. They were taught a technique called “lip-pointing,” which involved putting their radium-laced brushes into their mouths to optimize each stroke put to a watch face. Horrific consequences to their health followed, including protracted declines that finally ended in painful deaths. Collectively, they became knowns as “The Radium Girls” [14].

Subsequent litigation tied to their plight is regarded as the first labor rights movement, ultimately culminating in the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) signed into law by U.S. President Richard M Nixon in 1970 [15]. However, radium continued as a feature of James Bond watch dials until the early 1960s, albeit manufactured following modified techniques that reduced “to zero” the number of work-related deaths; it was that hard to find a viable commercial alternative.

In the Thunderball book, Felix Leiter reminded his friend about the effects of “‘those phosphorous numerals'” on his wristwatch dial {page 134}.

‘Remember the other day one of the watch companies withdrew an air-pilots’ watch from the market because the Atomic Energy people got fussy? Same thing. They thought this particular pilots’ watch, with the big phosphorous numerals, was giving off too much radiation to be good for the wearer.’

The Ian Fleming Rolex Explorer, produced during the fourth quarter of 1960, originally came with a radium dial. His death in 1964 likely contributed to the wristwatch not having gone through the process of replacement to a “safer” tritium service dial [16], as was becoming increasingly popular during that period [17]. When that Reference 1016 emerged from secured storage in the early 1980s, it was worn by a family member for twenty-plus years with its same radium dial still intact throughout.

Ironically, that dial was replaced during the first quarter of 2008 in preparation to display it as part of the “For Your Eyes Only” exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London, commemorating the 100-year anniversary of the birth of Ian Fleming [18,19]. In the process, the original radium dial was forever lost.

Officially, James Bond relied upon tritium lume in wristwatches through the premier of GoldenEye in 1995. A Japanese enterprise by the name of Nemota & Company created a strontium aluminate mixture commercialized under the name Luminova in 1993, and subsequently entered into partnerships to bring Super-Luminova to the market in 1998 [20]. That spelled the end of radioactive watch dials.

But that was not the end of the look. Jack Forster set appearance of the first “pre-aged” or “fauxtina” (ie, pigmented Super-Luminova) luminescence to circa 1998 [21]. This first appeared on a James Bond watch by Omega in 2015 with the SPECTRE Seamaster 300 Limited Edition, and again in the 2021 movie No Time to Die, with the titanium Seamaster Diver 300m.

PROOF-OF-CONCEPT

The “brand ambassador” approach seeks to hook prospect interests by associating watchmakers, if not specific models, with relatable, aspirational, or historical touchpoints.

One breathtaking example is that of Mercedes Gleitze, the first woman to swim the English Channel and her association with Rolex [22,23]. For Seiko, this might be better tracked by the category of “sports timekeeping,” hallmarked with its timing of the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo [24]. Regarding Omega, of course, whatever other popular names its wristwatches, none is likely to ever eclipse those of the NASA astronauts and the Apollo missions [25].

A parallel among get-together layouts and museum displays is an evolution from “we show visitors what we have, arranged by collections,” to timeline-with-engagement orientations. The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn, Michigan, to a major step in this direction during the mid-1980s, followed by a introduction of a mainstream-connection component twenty-five years later, based on lessons learned [26].

Unlike the previous exhibit, which dated from 1987 and assumed that visitors were all highly knowledgeable and car-crazy, ‘Driving America’ aims to capture the car’s impact on society.

When JamesBondWatches.com™ entered the National Watch & Clock Museum [27] in 2008, its entry to the main floor impressively began with a “long, dark time tunnel” that opened into a large first gallery appointed in “the time of Stonehenge and water clocks, where timekeeping first got its start” [28]. The experience at that time then concluded just before exit with a limited run series of galleries titled “Time in Office,” featuring a selection of personal pieces George Washington through Gerald R Ford [29].

James Bond Wore the Quartz Revolution™ took this to the next, ultimate level. Less than two decades after the Museum of Time opened in 1977 [30], quartz drives were en route to passing ninety-three percent of units sold worldwide [31]. But it wouldn’t move beyond brand-centric and niche category layouts for personal timekeepers until its first “Wristwatch Gallery” completely opened in 2014 — and, even then, with only this to roughly say about the technology (in the bottom-third of one graphic panel), supported by photography of a Rolex Oysterquartz Day-Date and OEM mechanism.

1980s–1990s:
Quartz Arrives–Big Time!

Unlike mechanical or electric wristwatches of the 1960s-1970s, digital quartz watches have no moving parts and are run totally by an integrated circuit (IC) with an LED (light-emitting diode) or LCD (liquid crystal display) to display time.

Analog quartz watches like the ‘Swatch,’ still in huge production today, incorporate an IC as the heart of the timepiece but use mechanical parts for the display of time and hand setting.

Eighteen months later, the James Bond gallery opened in its own space across the aisle from Wristwatches, and leveraged the 94.5% familiarity with the movies cited above to finally attract, engage, then present this pivotal story from the history of horology.

James Bond Wore the Quartz Revolution ran almost nine years at the National Watch & Clock Museum, ultimately serving as catalyst for a complete remodeling of the closing twelve percent of floor space that included its gallery.

The new, integrated “Wristwatch Gallery 2.0” is anticipated to reflect “lessons learned” from the engagement approach modeled through that last “James Bond watches” framework.

RELATED PAGES

— Dell Deaton
Updated: April 15, 2024
September 6, 2009

REFERENCES (off-site)
  1. “The original 007 marketing campaign”
    September 6, 2009 / Dell Deaton / Branding Bond, James Bond™ (accessed March 6, 2024)
  2. “Climax! Casino Royale (Season 1, Episode 3)”
    October 21, 1954 / CBS Television Network (via IMDbPro, accessed March 6, 2024)
  3. “Ian Fleming’s lost James bond screenplay reveals a very different 007”
    April 30, 2022 / Dalya Alberge / The Guardian (accessed March 11, 2024)
  4. “JFK’s secret weapon in the Cold War: James Bond”
    October 9, 2021 / Theo Zenou / The Washington Post (accessed March 6, 2024)
  5. “The President’s Voracious Reading Habits”
    March 17, 1961 / Hugh Sidey / Life / Time: Chicago (page 59)
  6. “James Bond brand is worth £13 billion”
    October 27, 2015 / Samantha Loveday / Licensing Source (accessed March 6, 2024)
  7. “Table HR2_4: Have you watched any of the following movie series? James Bond”
    November 8-11, 2018 / Morning Consult + The Hollywood Reporter, page 56 (via Morning Consult, accessed March 6, 2024).
  8. “Table HR3_4: And, do you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of the following movie series? James Bond” / Ibid, page 196.
  9. Men’s Style: The Thinking Man’s Guide to Dress
    2005 / Russell Smith / New York: St Martin’s Press (pages 147-148)
  10. “The Making of a Legend”
    Cédric Widmer / The Rolex Magazine, Issue #06 / Rolex SA: Bienne, Switzerland (pages 64, 68, and 73)
  11. “Rolex website now alludes to James Bond watch affiliation”
    July 5, 2010 / Dell Deaton / James Bond Watches Blog (via Internet Archive, accessed March 21, 2024)
  12. “Marie Curie: Biographical”
    The Nobel Prize (accessed March 9, 2024)
  13. “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Radium Dials, by Kathleen McGivney”
    Horological Society of New York (via YouTube, accessed March 9, 2024)
  14. “Who Were The Radium Girls?”
    May 30, 2021 / Buzzfeed Unsolved Network (via YouTube, accessed March 6, 2024)
  15. “OSHA at 50”
    U.S. Department of Labor (accessed March 10, 2024)
  16. “The Story of Lume — Part One”
    August 12, 2022 / Thor Svaboe / Fratello (accessed March 10, 2024)
  17. “The Evolution of Rolex Luminous”
    Rolex Passion (accessed March 10, 2024)
  18. “For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond, 17 April 2008 – 1 March 2009”
    April 17, 2008 / Lucy Chavasse and Jane Acton / Imperial War Museum (via Internet Archive, accessed May 13, 2011)
  19. “New Exhibit Honors 007 Creator Ian Fleming”
    May 27, 2008 / Rob Gifford / NPR (accessed March 10, 2024)
  20. “The Secret of Lume – Luminova and Super-Luminova Deep Dive”
    June 13, 2023 / DIY Watch Club (via YouTube, accessed March 11, 2024)
  21. “In-Depth: Fauxtina, The History And The Pros and Cons”
    January 22, 2020 / Jack Forster / Hodinkee (accessed March 11, 2024)
  22. “The typist who became the first British woman to swim the Channel – then had to do it again two weeks later after a cruel whispering campaign … As a new film brings her story to life”
    March 4, 2024 / Tom Leonard / Daily Mail (accessed March 16, 2024)
  23. “An Historically Important and Very Early Waterproof Rolex Oyster Wristwatch Worn by Mercedes Gleitze During Her Celebrated Vindication Channel Swim, 21st October 1927 Model: Oyster Precision, No 34075, 1926”
    June 21, 2000 / Christies, Live Auction 8802: “Rolex Watches” Lot 714 (accessed March 16, 2024)
  24. “A History of Sports Timekeeping”
    August 2019 / Serge Maillard / Europa Star (accessed March 12, 2024)
  25. “Omega Speedmaster Professional Chronographs”
    April 8, 2017 / Lee Bailham and Eric M Jones / National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Apollo Lunar Surface Journal (accessed March 12, 2024)
  26. “Side Order: Michigan’s Henry Ford Museum to unveil exhibit ‘Driving America’”
    January 20, 2012 / Dan Carney / The Washington Post (accessed March 12, 2024)
  27. National Watch & Clock Museum
    (accessed January 8, 2024)
  28. “National Watch & Clock Museum”
    Lancaster County Museums (accessed March 12, 2024)
  29. “Time in Office – 2008 National Watch & Clock Museum Exhibit”
    July 10, 2013 / National Watch & Clock Museum (via YouTube, accessed March 12, 2024)
  30. “National Watch & Clock Museum”
    Smithsonian Magazine (accessed March 12, 2024)
  31. “James Bond Wore Quartz Wristwatches: You Noticed
    September-October 2013 / Dell Deaton / NAWCC Bulletin / National Association of Watch & Clock Collectors: Columbia, Pennsylvania (page 429)