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| Image: Ian Fleming on the tarmac in January 1964 wearing his Rolex Explorer I. |
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Click here for complete *.pdf version of "Discovered: James Bond's Rolex," WatchTime (February 2009), by Dell Deaton |
During the debriefing with M, in Chapter 20 of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, “Bond lifted his left wrist” to check the time. “Remembered that he no longer had a watch. That would certainly be allowed on expenses. He would get another one as soon as the shops opened after Boxing Day. Another Rolex? Probably. They were on the heavy side, but they worked. And at least you could see the time in the dark with those big phosphorous numerals.” We see Fleming’s Explorer I on Bond for the last time (ever) on page 241, when 007 “glanced at the new Rolex on his wrist.”
Yet we still learn something: James Bond
may continue wearing a watch after it becomes “old,” as his friend Felix
Leiter once observed; but when it’s time for replacement, he chooses
new.
This first specific wristwatch chosen for Bond not only remains in
current production as the model 114270, but its overall appearance
remains true to the 1016 that Ian Fleming put on James Bond’s wrist in
1962. So what would it really mean to go “back to the original Fleming”
and put Bond in an 114270 for 2009? I think it would symbolize a more
discreet operative, more subtly able to transition from casino to combat
— every bit as tough, but without advertising his Navy service with a
watch that sticks out from his shirt cuff.
