In the summer of 2013, one story coming from the auction house of Christie’s in South Kensington was all over the media; that is, a Breitling wristwatch that was purchased in a British car boot sale for just £25 fetched a staggering £103,875. The Breitling Top Time, as verified by Christie's press release on the sale, was the actual timepiece worn by Sean Connery in the 1965 Bond film Thunderball, presented on screen as a Q Branch gadget. What follows is the story of how a forgotten prop ended up in a stranger's hands, and how it eventually found its way back into the spotlight.
Get breaking news anytime, anywhere. Download the TOI app now!
A car boot sale bargain no one recognised
Some time in 2012, there was a buyer who was going through a car boot sale in England, which is the equivalent of the term "garage sale" in Britain, when he noticed an odd watch among the assorted items laid on a table. Costing only £25, it appeared to be nothing but an old and worn-out chronograph. The buyer could not have imagined that the watch was actually worn by Connery on his wrist during one of the most profitable films in the Bond series. Following an examination of the watch, the buyer consigned it to Christie's who set the estimated value prior to sale at £40,000 to £60,000.
The Breitling Top Time built for Thunderball
The particular watch was one manufactured in 1962 by the firm of Breitling. The particular model in question was the Top Time (Ref. 2002). It was a new model created in the early sixties as a means of appealing to a more youthful and active target market segment. This watch, which was modified by the art department of the film to include a fictional Geiger counter used by Bond to follow up on the two stolen NATO atomic bombs under the water, is said to be the first ever watch customized for Bond. Only one such modified watch was ever made for filming, and once production wrapped, it simply disappeared. The Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève notes that the original Top Time was launched as an unconventional, sporty model aimed at a younger generation of buyers, a design identity that made the film prop distinctive enough to authenticate once it resurfaced decades later.
From £25 to £103,875 at Christie's
The timepiece was consigned to Christie’s Pop Culture auction, which was due to take place on 26 June 2013 at South Kensington, London, where the auctioneer publicized the sale in a press release one month prior, as outlined in the Christie’s official PDF for the James Bond Breitling item. A telephone bid drove the final price to £103,875, almost twice the £60,000 upper estimate, or about $160,175. Christie's popular culture department head Nicolette Tomkinson referred to the wristwatch as "the only Q branch gadget watch" ever worn by Connery. This point is particularly highlighted by Christie's media coverage of the 2013 Pop Culture sale and goes a long way toward explaining why the wristwatch was worth so much above its estimate.
As a matter of scale, even that relatively high price was a bargain compared with prices for other Bond memorabilia: Daniel Craig's Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean watch from Skyfall had sold a year earlier, in 2012, for £157,250, according to Christie's results for its "50 Years of James Bond" auction, while Connery's actual Aston Martin DB5 was eventually sold for several million pounds. However, the fact of having turned a £25 purchase into hundreds of thousands over the course of roughly a year stands out as one of the more remarkable sums in the film memorabilia auction world.
Why the watch had vanished for decades
How the watch moved from the movie set in the mid 1960s to the unknown stall many years down the line remains unclear, as the buyer decided to remain anonymous in the entire transaction. The likely theories concerning how it came to be where it was purchased seem to point to the conclusion that perhaps it ended up with a civilian after the shooting, only to be forgotten about, as a mere vintage Breitling rather than a film prop.
A bargain still talked about among Bond collectors
Even ten years on, the transaction is still lauded as one of the greatest collecting coups of the 21st century, as highlighted by watch industry articles marking the tenth anniversary of the auction, and even Breitling got in on the act by issuing Top Time watches alluding to their James Bond connection, such as the 2020 'Zorro' re-issue. It continues to be relevant in that it demonstrates how a historically significant object can be ignored until a specialist recognizes its importance.
