It can be safely said that there are many reasons as to why did Ian Fleming chose a Rolex for James Bonds wrist. British World War II prisoners could write Rolex and could receive a watch free of charge delivered to their camp. Perhaps the Rolex’s legendary toughness and dependability was the main reason behind all this, or it could be because Fleming wore a Rolex himself. But Ian Fleming for whatever reason one can think of chose Rolex for the most famous gentleman spy with the license to kill. Like his choices for clothing for bond was indistinguishable, Fleming was vague about the model of Rolex Bond wears, it is never made clear as to what model he wears until the 16th chapter of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. It is when Bond prepares to use his Rolex watch as a knuckle duster.
When bond was brought on the main screen the producers had to consider their every move as to what kind of clothing, the right kind of style and watch was necessary to make everything look perfect. Bond could not just wear any watch it had to be a Rolex. Cubby Broccoli came to the rescue when Rolex declined to provide one of their watches and the films budget didn’t allow them to buy one. He gave it to a member of the art department; the Rolex was a submariner with a massive crown but with no crown guards, a coin edge bezel and a black crocodile strap. Some Rolex watch collectors believe that the watch Sean Connery wore in Doctor No was the Rolex submariner model 6538 whereas most watch collectors call all early submariners without crown guards as the Bond submariner.
Although it is impossible to nail it down to one of these four models, the 6200, 6538A, thick cased 6538 and the 5510, other Rolex collectors believed that Submariner Sean Connery wore was one of the four above mentioned models or each one these four models made an appearance in each of the early films.It is assumed that Sean Connery wore the thick cased submariners in each of the following four films named as; Doctor No, From Russia with Love, Gold Finger, Thunder Ball and You Only Live Twice. Judging from the close-ups of the Sean Connery submariner the watch has a big crown with no crown guards, has a gilt dial two lines of printing on both the upper and the lower portion of the dial of different colors with Mercedes hands. There are no extra minute markings between 0 and 15 showing that the bezel insert is on the non-graduated version and its pearl is in the exact central portion of a silver colored triangle. These observations are significant in order to prove the so called experts wrong on these particular mens watches.
The James Bond and Sean Connery submariner, both UK watches, have been discussed by experts for a long time. The Sean Connery submariner has always had uniquely contradictory characteristics as compared to the exact model. But in the end it all comes to the simple fact that until and unless the Broccoli family, who are rumored to have the original watch, furnishes the exact model number, it is absolutely impossible to have any kind of know how of the exact model number of Connery Bond Submariner.