"Watch Guru pay world record price for Bond watch!" We at Watch Guru could not believe our luck when bidding on the true "James Bond submariner" started to falter at £21,000. We were able to buy the watch for £26,523 (including premium), which was just as well, as we had bought the previous lot, being the associated drawings of the watch by Syd Cain, for£7,233! Syd Cain worked on pretty much all the Bond productions as I guess you could say a sort of chief gadget designer, a Q`s Q.
He decided to remove the movement so as to fit propellers which, with the use of compressed air, would rotate the bezel at high velocity.
I hear you saying "What? Twenty-six grand for a watch with no movement, They must be mad!" But are we? Or do we just believe the business we're in to have strong enough roots to be a lasting one, and not the flash in the pan some people believe the recent craze for Rolex sports watches to be. I know that for myself, (Tom Bolt director of Watch Guru ltd) and I believe a great many others, the biggest contributing factor as to my interest in Rolex watches Was the scene in live and let die when Roger Moor cuts him self and Jane Seymour free using a Rolex Submariner ref: 5513 with buzz saw bezel. Although I'm sure Rolex wouldn't admit to it, I'd venture to say that those few seconds of celluloid did more to promote the Rolex Watch Company than Miss Gleitz's record channel swim, the Trieste (Bathyscaphe included) or dare I say even Mr P Newman's association with the Daytona (which incidentally was never the exotic dialled version).
In fact when one takes into account the fragility of the Swiss wrist watch industry as a whole during this period, as a result of the increasingly popular quartz movement, it just might be that Rolex could take responsibility for more than just securing the Submariners rightful place. I could see them admitting to that one!
Who knows, I might be mad and all this some elaborate justification in order to revisit and own a part of my childhood that fascinated me. I know one thing though, Watch Guru Ltd, not Rolex nor any museum, own probably the most historical piece of sport watch memorabilia ever manufactured.
Like the reintroduction of the Mini motorcar over a decade ago, this reinterpretation of Big Pilot by IWC is better than the original. This 1st series Platinum example is of course the top of the top.