So, after owning a 2531.80 that I've always quoted as "pre-bond" I'd like to know some details. What I was always explicitly stated is the following: 1. the 2531.80, which is one of the two quintessential original "bond omega" watches (the actual one for the first film being the quartz ref: 2541.80) was released as an omega watch before the 1995 release of goldeneye. There was a 300m model in this exact trim before the movie - nothing special was done to make one for the them. 2. What is based on inference but is logical is that more of these were sold after the film release than before. 3. The wild rumor mill portion that I can't find a solid ref for is that the reason for the switch from the traditional bond "rolex" is that rolex refused to lock into a licensing agreement for the bond films and as a result the set designer picked an omega. 4. There is a a way to date early smp 300m's that were before this era - there are few notable differences as indicated in the post below. But the question is if there is a cut-off for this and if it aligns with a change in production numbers. As an owner of an early SMP 300m, I'd love to start a discussion on these details to gain some understanding on these early 300m's. Let me know! Useful links I've found: - Interesting thread with a 49m serial with cal 1120 and a 54M serial with 1109 sold at the end of 93. https://omegaforums.net/threads/1109-vs-1120.70360/ - More details and pics of some of these early special parts: https://omegaforums.net/threads/seamaster-300-bond-ref-2531-80-first-batch.91127/ Edited: to clean up - see post #3 for more details.
The Bond Omega deal probably happened a bit before ‘95 in the film’s early production phase so it might be a bit hard to define exactly where the line is unless its the movie release date I guess. The BMW deal for the Z3 to appear happened in 1994 for example so Omega might have also signed earlier and was appearing in trailers and promotional photos prior to that also. Interestingly when you read the history of the film Brosnan was the backup choice, and Timothy Dalton was going to continue in Goldeneye and through another 4 movies but didn’t want to make a long term commitment, hence was dropped.
Makes sense, what history I've been able to dig up is as follows: 1. The 2531.80 was first released in 1993 and the movie was released end of 1995 (Nov).and was filmed in early 1995 (and written during 1994). The film ended up using the 2541.80 anyways. 2. The early 2531.80's had a few key details: a. tritium lume (before 1995): no t's on dial but the lume darkens and becomes non functional (as tritium does) b. some early ones (seems to be the whole era from 93-95 intermittently) have no omega logo on the HEV c. Bracelets were all 1503/825 with some of them not having the endlinks marked (825) d. Calibre was 1109/1111 (early) with either no chronometer rating (3 lines but same date window as the 2531.80 normally does) or with or the cal 1120 (later), serial numbers including up to at least 1994 were in the 49m range. Unsure for the quartz versions, but they were all non chronometer in that era (but the dial is a different p/n). I'd be very curious to know what the production numbers of these early pre-bond 300m watches are - as to me at least it's clear they were made before the movies. Would be interesting to see a 93/94 catalog to get an idea.