For 30 years, James Bond has been an Omega man on screen. But the literary Bond just made a very different choice. In King Zero, the new 007 novel by Charlie Higson publishing November 17, Bond skips the Seamaster for a vintage Vertex Cal 59 WWW, one of the “Dirty Dozen” field watches commissioned by the British Ministry of Defence during WWII. Vertex was the only British brand among the twelve.
The watch even has a backstory: it was given to Bond by his great-uncle, a 6th Airborne Division veteran who wore it on the D-Day mission to secure Pegasus Bridge.
Vertex still exists today, revived in 2015 by the founder’s great-grandson Don Cochrane. The closest modern equivalent, the M36, runs about $2,900 with a Sellita automatic movement and 100m water resistance. It is sold out as of this writing. Blame the Bond Effect. As Cochrane puts it, they are not the official Bond watch. They are literary Bond’s watch.
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