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Click here for complete *.pdf version of "Discovered: James Bond's Rolex," WatchTime (February 2009), by Dell Deaton |
Didn’t James Bond wear a Girard-Perregaux, too?
That’s legitimate to ask when you fast forward to Chapter 27 of From Russia with Love. Here, bad guy shoots Bond’s watch on his wrist. Bond kills bad guy, takes bad guy’s watch and starts wearing it as replacement. Bad guy’s watch thus becomes a James Bond watch. Identify brand of bad guy watch and you have brand name for Bond watch. Right?
Not exactly. Go back to Chapter 1 for initial details on that bad guy and follow through everything that Ian Fleming shared with his readers. Donovan Grant or “Red” Grant: We’re introduced to him on holiday, wearing his personal, indulgent timepiece.
“There was also a bulky gold wristwatch on a well-used brown crocodile strap. It was a Girard-Perregaux model designed for people who like gadgets, and it had a sweep second-hand and two little windows in the face to tell the day of the month, and the month, and the phase of the moon.”
Subsequently, when summoned to his assignment — assassinate James Bond — Grant pulls together traveling items including “cheap respectable clothes.” In other words, he’s no longer on holiday, no longer revealing his personal tastes, when he catches up with 007 later. It’s under this mission-prepared circumstance where Bond notes Grant’s left wrist in Chapter 25, and observes “a battered silver wristwatch with an old leather strap.”
