Yes, really. But this one is special.

Let me explain. Over the last couple of years I have gained weight, a lot of it. And I mean a LOT of it. In my sporty days I used to weigh around 70kg and for a while now 90kg was in the rearview mirror and getting smaller…
But I managed to get below 80kg again and yes 79.9kg is below 80kg. And I promised myself at the start, should I manage to get below 80kg I would buy that watch.

Yes, I bribed myself. And should I manage to get back down to 72kg there is another bribe waiting. But we are not talking about the future, we are talking about the now.

So, which watch did I get and why?

The Omega Seamaster Professional 300m

But not just any of them, the reference 2531.80 and if that number means nothing to you, that is the one Brosnan wore as Bond in “The World is not enough”. And here it is:

Why did I choose it?

1.) The Bond connection

For many reasons really, one of them me being a Bond fan and due to the time I grew up in, Brosnan was my Bond (and always will be). But the “World is not enough” to this day is my favorite Bond movie, an interesting plot around increasing the value of an oil pipeline, the skiing scene, the plot twist, when Electra turns out to be the evil mastermind, Bond driving a BMW Z8, one of the most elegant “modern” cars ever made and the end of Bond’s BMW cars and of course the so ultra cheesy lines at the end about the other Bond girl, Christmas Jones. (For those who forgot, the movie ends with them toasting the Christmas Day in Istanbul and Bond first says: “I always wanted to have Christmas in Istanbul” and later in bed utters “I always thought Christmas came only once a year”). Those lines still are as awkward as they were back then and still make me giggle a little.

And yes, there was that watch. In GoldenEye it had a laser and I think exploded as a grenade, but that was the quartz reference, in this one it had a grappling hook and in one scene a flashlight. In the movies to follow the 10 o’clock crown was removable and served as a remote detonator.

But more importantly, if my memory serves me right, it was the last Bond watch, that had gadgets. Starting with the Craig era of Bond, Omega was still his watch of choice and he even told Vesper so on the train, but they were “just” watches.

This is the last true Bond watch.

2.) One of the most important Omegas ever made

Omega is an old name in watch making, they were around 50 years before Hans Wilsdorf ever considered setting up a start-up watch company he decided to name “Rolex”. They weren’t even named Omega in the beginning, they were called “Louis Brand & Fils” and after they developed the first fully maintainable and repairable movement, they called the Omega-movement as in the last letter of the greek alphabet and, as they thought, the last movement that would ever be developed, because this was as good as it would get, they renamed the company Omega.

Long story short, the company has been around for a while, but they lost market share and relevance throughout the 20th century, first due to Rolexes tool watches and later due to the Quartz Crisis hitting in the 70s. Funny enough, they first missed tool watches and lost there, then quartz came around and Omega decided to switch over to avoid missing out again, which didn’t work out for them either. So when the 1990s rolled around Omega was about done, by now a member of the Swatch group and building second grade quartz watches.

And then they built this. A modern dive watch, that didn’t look like all the others, first in quartz and then as an automatic. They added a bracelet and clasp that was at least 10 to 15 years ahead of anything that Rolex had released and offered it at a fraction of the price.

The company was about to go under and decided to just release the best possible watch that could be made at the time at a more than fair price. And the Bond picked it up, as the story goes, because one of the costume designers figured the history of the British naval forces and Omega should mean that Bond wore an Omega, nothing else.

And all of a sudden, Omega was back, full time. This watch, single-handedly saved the company. A new design, made for the time and an all hands on deck decision.

Omega still likes to point out, that the Speedmaster was the first watch on the moon, but they never mention, that the Seamaster saved the company. This Seamaster.

3.) Pre-Coaxial

What am I on about now? Well Coaxial stands for the Coaxial Escapement, the part of the watch, that makes it tick, developed by a British watch maker called George Daniels, which he patented in 1980 and then tried to sell to every Swiss watch company. The one to pick it up? Omega. (Not missing out on something new again I guess)

This escapement has a lot of mechanical advantages and by removing friction from the escapement it increased service intervals from roughly 5 years to 8-10 years. But it also makes the watches rather thick. My Seamaster is about 11mm thick and that is for a 300m waterproof dive watch, the current models are almost 14mm thick. This might not sound like much, but in watch terms that is a world of a difference and the older version wears much more elegantly than the newer one.

And it is also slimmer than any of the other modern day dive watches from other companies, what they made here in 1998 is one of the slimmest yet most capable dive watches of all time. You could wear this as a dress watch to a suit and it wouldn’t feel out of place, but you could also go saturation diving in it and the helium escape valve would avoid it cracking. (That is what the 10 o’clock crown is actually for)

4.) Design

I just really like the design of it, the case doesn’t just have crown guards; rather flows out naturally and somehow the asymmetric crown at 10 balances the look, the lugs are polished on the outside and brushed on the inside making them look thinner than they are. The dial has a wave pattern on it, but it is very subtle and you don’t notice it in any light, just when it hits right. The hands are sword hands, but skeletonized and when the minute and hour hand align, the lume dot on the hour hand shines through the minute hand.

The bracelet is very 90s and early 2000s, but honestly really comfortable, mostly brushed beside 4 small polished links out of the 9 links on it. It looks a bit dated, but the bracelet is the same on modern day Seamasters, so it can’t be that bad.

Oh, almost forgot, the blue aluminum insert on the bezel. It lacks the shiny look of current ceramic inserts, but that adds to it being more on the tool watch side and I think it looks great.

Am I happy with it?

Short answer yes. Long answer: Still disappointed by it lacking a laser, explosives and a grappling hook, but then again, how often do you need those?

All in all, I am now the proud owner of one of my most favorite watches, it didn’t break the bank and still looks very good on the wrist.

Almost forgot

I did put it on the time grapher. According to its service history it was serviced twice and it is pushing 30 years. Yet the Omega caliber 1120 still runs at -1 seconds a day, with a healthy amplitude and 0ms of beat error. They built these like tanks…