The Best James Bond Watches

The release of James Bond No Time To Die may have been delayed to November due to the Coronavirus outbreak, but this gives us time to reflect on the best time pieces worn by the world's favourite fictional spy on screen.

One of a number of special Rolex models to appear in James Bond films over the years, the Rolex Pre-Daytona was worn in 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service and is famous for its red needle chronograph which is thought to have been added at the request of film producers. Famously, the Omega Seamaster has featured in every Bond film since Goldeneye and is rumoured to be Bond's watch of choice in No Time To Die.

To ensure you're up to scratch and to give you time to hunt down a Bond-esque watch yourself, we've rounded up the most iconic James Bond watches.

The Omega Seamaster is about as synonymous with the modern James Bond as it is possible to be. Daniel Craig himself visited Omega in Switzerland to see the design he would wear in Spectre and, as it is the first Bond watch ever to be made available to the public, the new version is guaranteed to become an instant classic.

Rolex timepieces have almost as strong a connection with Bond as the Seamaster and, indeed, it is a Rolex Oyster Perpetual which Ian Fleming picked for the spy in the original novels. However, the model chosen for the films was purely accidental. When the brand refused to lend a watch to the production company and they could not afford to buy one, producer Cubby Broccoli offered up the Submariner he happened to be wearing. It became the signature watch for all Sean Connery Bond films, including Dr No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball.

First released by Breitling in 1962, the rare Top Time timepiece is another of Bond’s with an intriguing backstory. Picked up by the film’s prop team for £25 at a car boot sale, it was then altered to feature a Geiger counter and became a key plot device enabling Bond to locate nuclear weapons in 1965 film Thunderball. When filming ended the watch disappeared for decades before resurfacing and being auctioned at Christie’s in 2013 where it made headlines by selling for £103,875.

The Seiko brand made its first appearance on the wrist of Roger Moore in the 1977 movie The Spy Who Loved Me and three different Seiko models were worn by 007 during the 1970s and 80s. The H357 5040 starred in 1981’s For Your Eyes Only (pictured above) and has since become particularly hard to get hold of. Another of Bond’s forays into digital horology, the timepiece foreshadowed the modern world of smartwatches by allowing Bond to receive messages on its digital display.