Omega Seamaster Diver 300M 007 Edition 210.90.42.20.01.001«Daniel Craig»

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The storyWhy this reference matters

Bond has worn Omega since GoldenEye in 1995, but for twenty-five years the film watches were catalogue pieces with a logo dropped on them. This one is different. Omega gave Daniel Craig a seat at the design table, and he came with firm ideas: light was the priority, and he wanted vintage tones to give the watch a character of its own. It was announced in December 2019 and reached shops in February 2020 — a year and a half before the film itself finally made it to cinemas.

Grade 2 titanium for the case and the mesh bracelet. Light is meant literally: the whole thing comes in at around 93 grams. Dial and bezel ring are anodised aluminium in a brown that copies the tropical tone black dials from the 1950s and 60s take on once the lacquer starts to go in the sun. Omega usually sells you the future — ceramic, laser engraving — and here it went into the business of manufacturing fake patina. It worked.

The joke is on the case back. The engraving copies the format used on British Ministry of Defence issue watches: 0552 is the Royal Navy code, 923 7697 designates a diver's watch, the A means screw-down crown and the broad arrow marks Crown property. Then come two numbers no quartermaster ever stamped on anything: 007, and 62 for the year of the first film. It looks genuine right up until you read it twice.

SpecificationsThe numbers, in one table

IdentificationHow to tell it apart

It's a Diver 300M with the waves taken off. The standard model has its wave pattern laser-cut into a ceramic dial; the 007 gets a matte brown anodised aluminium dial instead, with blackened hands and indices and cream Super-LumiNova. There's no date window either — on the current Diver 300M it sits at six — because the 8806 is the no-date version of the 8800.

Reference 210.90.42.20.01.001 is the one on the titanium mesh bracelet. 210.92.42.20.01.001 is the identical watch on the brown, grey and beige striped NATO strap, with 007 engraved on the titanium buckle. If someone offers you a 007 Edition on a NATO, check that the reference agrees — or that the mesh is in the box.

Titanium throughout: case, bezel with its aluminium insert, mesh and case back. It weighs about 93 grams, which on the wrist means a 42 mm diver you can more or less forget about. The helium escape valve is still there at ten o'clock. Case 42 mm across, 13.48 mm thick, 49.6 mm lug to lug, 20 mm lug width.

CollectingWhat collectors check

Grade 2 titanium is soft — softer than the grade 5 Omega uses on other pieces — and here it's brushed from end to end, so it picks up marks. The good news is that an all-brushed finish can be refreshed. The bad news is that a clumsy refinish rounds off the case and bezel edges for good. Take it under a raking light and study the flanks of the lugs and the rim of the bezel.

The mesh needs its own inspection. Work the folding clasp and its adjustment system, then lay the bracelet flat and look down it for ripples — a mesh that has been stretched or forced never lies properly again. And don't expect a NATO in the box with this reference, because none was supplied.

This is not a limited edition but part of the permanent collection, which keeps the market fairly level-headed. What moves the price is a full set — box, card, METAS certificate — and above all an untouched brown bezel ring. Anodised aluminium cannot be polished, and that shade is impossible to match. Hold the dial and the bezel against each other, too: if the two browns don't agree, one of them has been replaced.

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