Will the real Bond NATO please stand up

For some years a sub community of the watch community that I believe is more correctly classified under the King Wang Community have lapped up (like a kitten milk) that a particular colour pattern  of NATO strap was correctly called "The Bond NATO" ... without even questioning anything about it. Such as:

• was it the colours we're told it is (by strap sellers on eBay largely)?
• was it even a NATO or just a strap?

(its a fine line between watch enthusiast / collector and Wanger. A follower of King Wan is largely unimaginative and seeking to be told what they should like but it must be expensive & flashy). 

Like all things in the Kingdom of Wang false ideas are the jewel in the crown. 

This term essentially stems from the movie Goldfinger where Bond is shown wearing a Rolex (extra wanking cred there these days) with a nylon strap. I'm going to cut to the chase here and show an image from Goldfinger which shows clearly that which is "thought to be" the Bond NATO is not correct. So in Goldfinger, right at the start, we have Bond emerge from the water in SCUBA gear and infiltrate a place (of purveyance?) and begin setting some explosive charges on some drums.

He checks the time and you can see dimly and fleetingly his strap (which doesn't properly fit his watch). Indeed in that fleeting glimpse it does indeed seem like its a match for the classic Bond NATO which we all know and love. Its understandable from this scene that the view of it being black and grey is a reasonable one because its dark and you only get this fleeting view.

However when you see the next scene in the bar we see him check the time, just before the explosions go off. 

This shot reveals two things 1) its not a NATO and 2) actual colours: it appears to be black with green and very fine red lines either side of the green, but appearances (on VHS or worse) can be deceptive. (as an aside this shot shows just how bright the old radon based lume was). 

Thus to believe the Bond NATO view as its been presented is to have not paid much attention during Goldfinger and to have simply gone with first image as seen on a freeze frame on your VCR (remember them?) and ignored the later one.

Now the image here is taken from a frame of my (now quite old) Bond DVD (NOTE, not Blu-ray HD) which isn't actually a remaster. Perhaps on older TV's it would be less clear than this ... helping perpetuate the myth (which is actually a relatively recent phenomenon and perhaps exploding more as watch wankers soaked up the mythology needed for their official blazer badge).

I am not the first to be observing this mistaken identity (far from it) as this site (here) makes plain. The purpose of this post is to 

1. add another voice to that call
2. further my King Wang series (which started here) where (for some) wanking takes priority over reality

From the Rolex magazine (2005): 

In Goldfinger, Sean Connery as James Bond wears a Rolex Submariner [Reference 6538] as pictured below, on a Regimental belt strap. Many people say Sean Connery wore his 6538 Submariner on a NATO strap. This is not true. There has NEVER been a James Bond movie in which James wears a NATO. 

Note that the strap that Sean Connery wears has 9 stripes total consisting of Dark Navy Blue, Dark Olive Olive and fine burgundy stripes. The most interesting part of this story is that Daniel Craig was recently seen wearing and talking about his Rolex 6538 that he wears on a NATO strap.

Oops ... 

They go on to say:

... The strap Sean Connery is wearing is a Royal Scots government strap, and its formal colour names are: Peony Red, Gosling Green and Oxford Blue. The Royal Scots, also know as "The Royal Regiment" is the oldest British Army Regiment. It was founded in 1633 by Sir John Hepburn by a Royal Warrant from King Charles I, who recruited 1200 men in Scotland. On March 28, 2006, the Royal Scots merged with other Scottish Infantry Regiments to become The Royal Regiment of Scotland.

Which is very befitting of Connery who was a Scotsman (and it was his personal watch).

But are we correcting this or is the mainstream just going with the wrong facts? I say the latter ... Indeed some sellers are now aware of this and are selling a "Vintage" (King Wang?) version of the Bond NATO

So the King Wang of the "proper" appearance of the Bond NATO can't be changed now (because the knob on the end prevents the hand coming off) and there is now a Vintage Bond NATO strap. 

Sigh

but what about NATO?

The funniest thing about this is not only (as Rolex Magazine mentions) has no bond ever worn a NATO strap, its that NATO Strap hails from much later in history (1973 actually) than the Goldfinger movie while Goldfinger was released in 1964, so without a time machine its pretty hard to imagine they had a NATO strap.

Its probably too late to stop this with the tide now fully in, but in the interests of preventing even more wanking about this...

I thought this post may play a small part.

Best Wishes

PS: Today (10/09/2021) it came to my attention that subsequent to the writing of the Rolex Magazine (2005) that Omega has taken on the mythos with their Seamaster range and added a Bond NATO (not the Traditional) into their range. Let me cite their product literature:

It's fitting that an ex-naval commander would choose a Seamaster. In SPECTRE, Bond wears two. The OMEGA Seamaster 300 SPECTRE Limited Edition with rare lollipop seconds hand and black and grey NATO strap; and the OMEGA Aqua Terra 150m: a striking watch with a blue dial that recalls OMEGA's rich maritime heritage and Bond's naval background.

But no mention of it being a Bond NATO strap ... just black and grey NATO ... 

So lets look at the Bond Films:

 Dr. No (1962)
From Russia with Love (1963)
Goldfinger (1964)
Thunderball (1965)
You Only Live Twice (1967)
Casino Royale (1967)
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969
Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Live and Let Die (1973)              <<<NATO strap invented
The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
Moonraker (1979)
For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Never Say Never Again (1983)
Octopussy (1983)
A View to a Kill (1985)
The Living Daylights (1987)
Licence to Kill (1989)
GoldenEye (1995)
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
The World Is Not Enough (1999)
Die Another Day (2002)
Casino Royale (2006)
Quantum of Solace (2008)
Skyfall (2012)
Spectre (2015)                        <<< First Bond to wear a NATO
No Time to Die (2021ish)

Pretty clearly a Bond NATO isn't a thing isn't it ... So to me its cash in on the false premise and make it truth. Perfect marketing opportunity created for you.

Personally I think Chrissie summed it up well here

ouhh ...

making my work watch visually workable

 A little while back I bought a Seiko 5 (SNK805) as a dabble back into analogue watches after a few years in digital / training watches. Keeping with the practical view I was attracted also by a fully mechanical watch which I could wear as a daily driver. However it turned out that while I liked the watch for many reasons I found that seeing the time (especially when just taking a quick glance) was a more deliberate effort of "reading the time" rather than the decades honed ability to "see the time" (more or less instant recogntion of where the hands are). 

This lead me to buy another watch which was more practical as well as a bit more smart casual where I could see the hands better. I now wear that watch as my daily driver and this nice SNK hardly comes out of the box, except when I'm working and so its become my work watch (or beater as the A Merry Cans like to call it ... in their usual curious way {a beater here is a category of wanker}).

However even then it took a moment if I wasn't wearing glasses (such as when working on my motorcycle electricals) mostly the problem was being clear about which hand was which, as both hands are quite similar in shape ...

In sharp enlarged screen size like this its mostly pretty clear which hand is which, but with diminishing close vision (exacerbated in lower light or wearing sunglasses) it took too much attention (or putting on my glasses, normally reserved for reading) it came out more like this

I've left this smaller to make it more obvious. As it happens the aging process gets our eyes eventually even if you started out needing glasses.

I wanted something which was not absurdly arty meaning something which would normally be fitted onto a watch, and found this replica of a Citizen Divers watch hands (a picture of which I found on the net).

Divers watches (before they became the domain of "never been diving watch wankers") are  the very essence of practical and with a high requirement of unambiguous clarity of reading; which I thought was quite suitable.

The hands arrived and I did a quick lay over of them to see how it looked.

It ticked all my boxes.

Now I understand why there may be some aesthetic objections to this but I'd like to say that the very nature of a field watch is practical and functional, so it is sort of a highly specific "Jewellery" category. 

With the hands now fitted it looks like this

Which has grown on me substantially in the last few days that its been there. Not only is it highly legible without my glasses but adds a classic 70's look to a watch which tries to look like military field watch. The large size of the paddle which is the hour hand instantly draws your vision to wards it and then the minute hand. Which is just what I wanted.

Some other win win aspects of this are that while the minute hand is visible to me its far less visually significant, which is EXACTLY what I have always wanted out of a watch. Indeed I've often considered a one hander such as this UNO

which is the ultimate in uncluttered reading if you ask me. Entirely sufficient to know the important stuff like: 

• what hour it is,
• is it on the hour near or just past the hour.

Stuff like minutes are the stuff of schedules and train time tables (because lets face it one has to be at the Airport much earlier now). For time critical stuff of course I rely on my phone now too.

This however is a great compromise because you can have a minute hand to pick out that if you wish (and on a smaller dial like this that's a significant bonus)

The Down Sides

The astute will have noticed that my SNK now no longer has a second hand. This was not (at first) an aesthetic choice because I was sort of slavishly reassembling my watch. I had decided to refit the original second hand (because I liked it) and unfortunately munged it up on reassembly

I discovered that it was very difficult to coordinate the (low priced) bench press type that I used to refit the hands and now believe that I would have been better off with a simple hand tool where I could feel things and use my depth perception to better place the hands. The hour and minute hands went ok, but the accuracy needed for getting the shaft down this hole meant that it was a no go. Rather than risk damage to the watch movement I just removed the second hand and left it.

I don't really feel that a second hand brings much to the table on such a watch particularly when "hacking" (or the ability to perfectly set the minute hand and second hands together) isn't present (but you can sort of do it). The only other useful function of the second hand is to show you its working.

Given that its an automatic (without hand winding) if I pick it up and the time is wrong then part of resetting and winding (before I put it on) will be to check the rear mechanism through the display back

So while its an accident I think I prefer it this way. 

What it looks like to me in daily use is like this:

I can see the grass clearly without my glasses, but not my watch (just like the above). But even like this you can see the time even if you can't read the numbers.

Takeouts

things I've learned from this:

• modding a watch is dooable but you need to have patience and preparation
• cheap tools are going to give you grief
• modding a watch can with a little planning and shopping around make a watch you like better.
• take your time, expect some small setbacks

Lastly I recommend this blog post.

Happy Modding :-)