James Bond Omega watch worn by Daniel Craig to be auctioned, starting price $15,000

Auction houses are an endless source of ever rarer and ever more one-of-a-kind watches, and the past few months have proven that once and for all. When we thought we had seen everything, one of the only three Cartier watches with a case in the shape of a cheich, given to the Paris-Dakar driver who would win the race twice in a row in the same category, reappeared at auction . The reasons for this abundance? Potential sellers want their piece of the pie. Final sale prices are reaching record sums and everyone is eager to unearth the buried treasure that could earn them a box at auction. Also, when the auction houses cannot find legendary models for sale, they can manufacture some by referring to special editions or by sending watches into space. These increasingly innovative approaches have made the past few months the most entertaining in recent auction room history.

Here is a selection of watches that will hold our attention in the coming season.

Two of James Bond’s watches have been auctioned

Christie’s, September 20

As part of the dedicated session “Sixty Years of James Bond”, Christie’s has put on sale a series of equipment that made the secret agent. Tom Ford suits! Aston Martin replicas! Bionic eye! But above all, two watches that Daniel Craig wore on screen in Dying can wait in 2021. First there is the Omega Aqua Terra 150M with a blue dial that we see from the first sequence of the film, but above all the Seammaster Diver 300M model, specially designed for Bond and which the actor helped to design. The watch plays an important role in the film (spoiler alert) when 007 uses its built-in detonator to blast his nemesis’s bionic eye. To date, we still do not know if the next owner will be able to enjoy this feature. Even without Q’s cool gadgets, this lot is sure to be the most coveted of the entire auction. Collectors have long sought out copies of the Bond Submariner (Rolex reference 6538) that Sean Connery has on his wrist in James Bond 007 versus Dr No. Today you can buy the unique models that our spy wore in the movies! And it’s a safe bet that it’s not the kind of watch that will return to the auction circuit anytime soon.

Paul Newman…again?!

Sotheby’s, December 9

You read correctly. We all remember Paul Newman’s Rolex which sold for $17.8 million. It is the most expensive Daytona ever sold at auction. A second sale organized in 2020 did not escape anyone: the other Daytona of the actor was sold for the more modest sum of 5.5 million dollars. A new series of watches that once belonged to the legend are making their debut at Sotheby’s in December: a “Pepsi” GMT-Master II and another one Daytona. Not only were they once the property of Paul Newman, but they were part of the trip during a memorable test to break the sound barrier aboard a land vehicle.

Paul Newman reportedly gave these two watches to his friend, stuntman Stan Barrett, when he learned that the latter intended to break the record. “We were at his house in Connecticut and he went upstairs and down with the Daytona,” Stan Barrett recently told the New York Times. “He was always very funny and mocking, and he was extremely generous.” (And Newman was a generous man with his watches: every time a piece comes up for auction, you learn that it was, for example, a gift he gave to a boyfriend of his daughter.) Stan Barrett wore these two watches on his wrist as he attempted to break the speed record in a rocket car.

George Daniels and the history of watches

Phillips’s, November 5 and 6