Omega Releases The Seamaster Diver 300M James Bond And Spectre Collection

For three decades, Omega has sold the Seamaster to people who want to feel a bit like Bond. Yes, it was a silly fantasy, a marketing ploy, but one that worked quite well for the Swiss company. They've been making watches themed after characters, after movies, and in varying sizes and materials. What they haven't exactly done is make a watch for the people who were rooting for the man with the cat. Today, we're getting two new James Bond-themed Seamaster Diver 300M no-dates, one Bond, one Spectre.

Both of these watches share the familiar steel case, 42mm wide and 14.23mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 50mm. Yes, before you say anything, this is a large watch. I don't think Omega cares much about what we think about it. You get the twisted lyre lugs, the conical helium valve at 10, a domed box sapphire over the dial and a transparent caseback. Water resistance is 300 meters. The bezels are the first place the two models part ways. The Bond variant gets a grade 5 titanium insert with a raised, laser-ablated scale on a matte ground, while Spectre gets a ceramic insert in black with its 60-minute scale also in relief. Looks a bit familiar, no?

The Bond dial is blue aluminium with laser-cut waves, a nod to the 1990s SMP, and the Bond family crest replaces the marker at 12. I'm thinking this will be controversial, but I like the small change. Rhodium-plated indices and skeleton hands glow blue, except the minute hand, which glows green so you can read elapsed time at a glance underwater. The Spectre dial is grained black aluminium with standard Seamaster hands and indices.

Inside is the Omega calibre 8806, the in-house automatic with a co-axial escapement and silicon balance spring, beating at 3.5Hz with 55 hours of reserve. It's a Master Chronometer, certified by COSC and METAS and resistant to 15,000 gauss. More changes can be found on the back, where you see new rotors through the caseback. Bond's rotor is cut into the gun-barrel shape in rhodium, Spectre's is a blackened octopus. Both come on the brushed steel mesh bracelet that debuted on the titanium No Time to Die model.

There are also two limited-edition sets, one for Bond and one for Spectre, each made in 77 numbered examples. Each set contains two watches: the matching steel model, with a numbered plate added on the case flank at 9, and a second Seamaster Diver 300M in Omega's platinum-gold, an alloy of roughly 95% platinum and 5% gold. The platinum-gold watches are 14.29mm thick, with solid white gold guilloché dials, polished ceramic bezels with platinum scales, alligator straps on platinum-gold buckles, and rotors with the emblem in 18k Moonshine Gold. Movement and water resistance don't change.

The Bond set's platinum-gold watch has a blue bezel and a blue gradient dial engraved with the gun-barrel spiral; its box adds 007 on the strap keepers and a blue travel pouch. The Spectre set's has a black bezel and a grey-to-black dial engraved with the octopus; its box adds the octopus on the keepers, cufflinks and cord bracelet, and a black pouch. Both boxes also come with a NATO strap and tool, a loupe and a leather card holder. Each set costs €88,500.

The steel editions are not limited and on sale from today at Omega stores and online for €8,500. See more on the Omega website.