George Lazenby wears a Rolex Pre-Daytona 6238

Eon Productions bought this watch at Bucherer in Interlaken on October 23, 1968, specifically for the Piz Gloria infiltration scenes. The Rolex ref. 6238 is a pre-Daytona chronograph, a manual-wind steel piece with pump pushers that Rolex manufactured from 1960 to 1967 before replacing it with the Daytona ref. 6239. The prop department modified it with a red second hand to serve as a compass, guiding Bond through the Swiss Alps while posing as genealogist Sir Hilary Bray.

Peter Hunt directed On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and the 6238 appears alongside Lazenby's Submariner ref. 5513 in the same film. It is a functional chronograph repurposed as a navigation instrument, which is the kind of creative prop work that the Bond franchise did well before the gadgets became absurd. The 6238 gets limited screen time, but the close-up of Bond checking his "compass" during the Piz Gloria escape is one of the better watch shots in the series.

The actual screen-used 6238 sold at Christie's London on December 16, 2003, for 23,400 pounds, about $41,000 at the time. It was later offered at Artcurial in 2016 and Antiquorum in 2019. A standard pre-Daytona 6238 in good condition now sells for $50,000 to $80,000 at auction. The Bond provenance pushes this particular example considerably higher. It is one of the few screen-used watches where the prop itself became a collectible worth more than the model it represents.