October 5th is James Bond Day, the anniversary date of the premier of Dr No, the first James Bond film back in 1962.
That makes 2022 the 60th Anniversary, and Christies are partnering with EON Productions to celebrate in style with a fantastic Sixty Years of James Bond: Live Auction.
The auction features 60 lots, spanning 25 films, with the sale proceeds being donated to 45 charities.
The headline lot is the Aston Martin DB5 stunt car that featured in the opening scenes of No Time to Die.
The car is being sold by Aston Martin Limited and has a £1,500,000-£2,000,000 estimate and if sold proceeds will go to The Prince’s Trust and the Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund.
The car is one of eight stunt cars built for the film and the only one to be released for sale by Aston Martin, and one of the only ones to include the gadgets seen in the film as Daniel Craig drives through the streets of Matera, Italy, plus the bullet holes to the exterior.
The Christie’s Auction also features one of James Bonds’ watches, the Omega Seamaster 300M 007 Edition was worn by Daniel Craig in No Time To Die.
Again donated by EON productions the proceeds from this lot will be donated to The British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
The watch has an estimate of £15,000-£20,000.
A second watch, a stainless steel Omega, worn by Daniel Craig in No Time To Die, has an estimate of £15,000-£20,000 with proceeds going to Orbis International, a charity that helps fight global blindness.
Both estimates seem cheap given that Bond’s watch from Skyfall sold for £157,250 by Christies in October 2012 against an estimate of £6,000-£8,000.
Another cool lot is one of the five bionic eyeballs created for the film and worn by Spectre agents in No Time to Die.
Image: Christie's
The bionic eyes enabled Blofeld to continue his shenanigans from prison.
The eye has an estimate of £4,000-£6,000
For a true James Bond connoisseur piece it has to be a two-piece dinner suit designed by Tom Ford and worn by Daniel Craig in No Time To Die, with an embroidered label reading ‘TOM FORD, Daniel Craig, Bond 25’.
The dinner suit has an estimate of £25,000-£30,000.
We have to go back to 2007 for the last sale of a James Bond tuxedo when Sean Connery’s Thunderball tux sold for £33,600 at Bonhams.
The most expensive piece of James Bond memorabilia ever sold is the 1965 Aston Martin DB5 labelled ‘The most famous car in the world’,
The car was one of four examples that featured in Thunderball, and was in the collection of JCB owner, Lord Bamford, from 1971-2013.
Featuring all the gadgets from the film, including the bumper machine guns, the car sold for $6,385,000 in August 2019 at RM Sotheby’s.
Sotheby’s will be hosting their own James Bond Anniversary sale James Bond on Bond Street, on 29th August 2022 featuring first edition Ian Fleming books, posters, watches and other memorabilia.
And Lyon & Turnbull also have a selection of James Bond memorabilia. Their October 2022 auction is set to feature a number of original posters including a Thunderball poster with a £6,000-£8,000 estimate.
The poster is designed by Robert McGinnis, the artist responsible for many of the most memorable Bond posters.
The auction also features a rare 1964 Goldfinger film poster with the classic ‘gold lady’ designed by Robert Brownjohn, again with a £6,000-£8,000 estimate.
And in June we wrote that London based book dealers Peter Harrington had been tasked with selling the superb James Bond memorabilia collection of Norwegian tycoon Martin Schoyen.
The collection comprises over 600 rare books, signed first editions, and scripts from James Bond author Ian Fleming.
Amongst many impressive items is one of only 125 proof copies of For Yours Eyes Only with a price of £7,500 plus Fleming's script for his final James Bond book 'The Man With The Golden Gun'
The script includes corrections from both Fleming, and Kingsley Amis, his posthumous editor, and is expected to sell for £195,000.
Even items not directly related to Bond can fetch huge figures at auction.
In 2012 a gun that was held by Sean Connery on The From Russia With Love film poster sold at auction at Christies.
Lacking any useable props the photographer gave Sean Connery his own Walther air pistol to hold during the photo-shoot.
The air pistol sold for £277,250.
Here at The Memorabilia Club we like to play our If I were a billionaire game, and our choice of James Bond memorabilia would be Wet Nellie, the white Lotus Esprit S1 that turns into a submarine in the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved me.
After filming ended Wet Nellie went on a promotional tour only to end up in an unpaid storage unit that subsequently sold at auction for $100.
The owner then auctioned the car at RM Auctions in London for £550,000 in 2013.
The new owner? Real life billionaire Elon Musk.