Smith & Wesson SWW-45 “Supernatural”

The Smith & Wesson SWW-45 S.W.A.T.: the sub-cinquanta-dollari tactical timepiece that Jensen Ackles wore during the first season of Supernatural*, the entry point of a watch progression that would carry Dean Winchester from a licensed firearms brand to Luminox, MTM Special Ops, Suunto, Hamilton, and back again across fifteen seasons of monsters and mythology*

Supernatural premiered on the WB Network on September 13, 2005, and ran for fifteen seasons, concluding on The CW in November 2020. It follows Dean and Sam Winchester, two brothers who travel the United States in a 1967 Chevrolet Impala hunting demons, ghosts, and everything else in the catalogue of American folklore and mythology. The show was created by Eric Kripke, filmed primarily in Vancouver, and became the longest-running genre series in American television history, accumulating a fandom of unusual intensity and loyalty.

Dean Winchester’s name is itself a firearms reference: Winchester is one of the most celebrated rifle manufacturers in American history, responsible for the lever-action repeating rifles that equipped the American West in the nineteenth century. The brother’s surnames were chosen deliberately, and the writers underlined the joke in Season 4, Episode 17, “It’s a Terrible Life,” in which an angel’s spell erases the brothers’ memories and gives them new identities. Dean becomes Dean Smith, Sam becomes Sam Wesson. Smith & Wesson, Winchester: all three surnames are iconic American firearms companies, and their convergence on two brothers who spend their lives armed and moving is not accidental.

It is therefore exactly right that the watch Dean Winchester wears in the first season of Supernatural is a Smith & Wesson SWW-45.

More on the series: imdb.com/title/tt0460681 and on Dean’s complete watch inventory across the series: watchranker.com/watches-worn-in-supernaturals

The Watch That Started the Progression

Dean Winchester’s wrist tells the story of fifteen seasons of escalating production values and shifting character positioning. The SWW-45 is the starting point, worn during Season 1, and is, as fan and costume research consistently notes, the most affordable watch he wears at any point during the series. From there the progression moves through a Luminox Original Navy Seal 3000 series, then the MTM Special Ops Black Patriot, then multiple Suunto references including the Vector and the Core All Black, then a Hamilton Khaki Field Titanium Automatic in Seasons 12 and 13, then a Garmin Fenix 5 Plus in Season 13 and beyond, with various Luminox models reappearing throughout. The trajectory is from an entry-level licensed tactical watch to increasingly sophisticated outdoor and military instruments, tracking both the show’s growing budget and Dean’s trajectory from a scrappy hunter driving on borrowed money to a figure of genuine mythological consequence.

The SWW-45’s position at the beginning of this progression is not accidental. Season 1 Dean Winchester is a character without resources, operating on credit card fraud and whatever cash he can find, driving across America with his brother in a muscle car that doubles as a home and a weapon. The watch he wears should be affordable, tactical-looking, and unobtrusive enough not to draw attention. A fifty-dollar Smith & Wesson watch with a black rubber strap and a black dial, bearing the S.W.A.T. logo, does all of this and connects the character’s name to the brand’s name in a single visual gesture that requires no explanation.

The S.W.A.T. Watch: A Firearm Company’s Licensed Product

Smith & Wesson was founded in 1852 by Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson in Norwich, Connecticut, initially to produce a lever-action pistol. The venture failed commercially and the company’s assets were absorbed by investor Oliver Winchester, who reorganised them into what became the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, establishing the direct historical link between all three surnames the Supernatural writers later deployed. Smith and Wesson regrouped and founded a second partnership in 1856 in Springfield, Massachusetts, where the company has remained headquartered ever since. Through the Civil War, the frontier era, two World Wars, and the twentieth century’s expansion of American law enforcement, Smith & Wesson’s revolvers and pistols became standard equipment for military and police forces worldwide.

The watch bearing the Smith & Wesson name is a licensed product, not a watch manufactured by the firearms company. Smith & Wesson, like many industrial and military brands, extended its trademark into adjacent product categories, including knives, flashlights, handcuffs, apparel, and watches, through licensing agreements that placed the brand’s law enforcement and tactical associations on products made by other manufacturers. The SWW-45 S.W.A.T. watch is manufactured in Hong Kong or China, according to different versions of the product listing, powered by a Japanese quartz movement, and sold through tactical, police supply, and outdoor retail channels at a price point well below any watchmaking brand’s entry-level offering. The Smith & Wesson name on the dial signals a target customer, not a provenance.

The SWW-45: Everything It Needs to Be and Nothing Else

The SWW-45 S.W.A.T. is a 40-millimetre round case watch in stainless steel with a stainless steel case back, mineral crystal, Japanese quartz movement, and a black rubber strap. The dial is black with the S.W.A.T. logo silk-screened in white, three hands for hours, minutes, and seconds in luminous material, and a date display at three o’clock. The electronic back-glow illuminates the dial for reading in dim conditions. The rotating bezel allows elapsed time tracking. Water resistance is rated at 30 metres, sufficient for rain and incidental splash exposure but not for diving. The case thickness is 13 millimetres.

This is a watch with no complications, no pretensions, and no unnecessary elements. It does not need a chronograph because Dean Winchester does not time races. It does not need a depth gauge because Dean Winchester does not dive. It does not need satellite connectivity or altimetry or a heart rate sensor because in 2005, when the series began, these were not yet expected features of any watch. What it needed was a black face, luminous hands, a date, and the word S.W.A.T. on the dial to communicate in the most direct possible visual language that the man wearing it deals with situations requiring special weapons and tactics. The watch accomplishes this at a retail price that would have been within reach of any viewer who wanted to replicate it, which is the other function of a first-season prop watch: it can become merchandise for a fanbase that doesn’t have a budget for Luminox or Suunto.

The Name on the Dial and the Name on the Car

The decision to put a Smith & Wesson watch on a character named Winchester in the first season of a show called Supernatural has the quality of a joke told too quietly for most of the audience to catch, which is characteristic of the show’s best writing. Winchester makes the rifles. Smith & Wesson makes the handguns. Both companies were part of the same original venture in 1852. Dean drives a car named after a rifle manufacturer and wears a watch named after a handgun manufacturer, and neither the character nor the audience is expected to register the full layering of the reference. It is enough that the watch is black and tactical and cheap and right for the character at the moment in the story when he first appears.

The progression that follows, from the SWW-45 through the Luminox and the MTM and the Suunto and the Hamilton, traces the arc of a character who begins with nothing and accumulates, over fifteen seasons, a history so dense and a mythology so elaborate that the simple first-season watch becomes a document of where he started. By the time Dean Winchester is wearing a Hamilton Khaki Field Titanium Automatic in Season 12, the distance between that watch and the fifty-dollar SWW-45 is not measured in money but in everything that happened between the pilot episode and the middle seasons of a show that ran for a decade and a half.

More on the Smith & Wesson brand history: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_%26_Wesson and on the full watch progression across the series: iknowwatches.com/dean-winchester-supernatural-watches

Technical note: Smith & Wesson SWW-45 S.W.A.T. Watch. Stainless steel case, 40mm diameter, 13mm thickness, stainless steel case back. Black rubber strap. Round black dial with S.W.A.T. logo in white, three-hand analogue display with luminous hour and minute hands, date display at 3 o’clock. Electronic back-glow illumination. Rotating bezel for elapsed time. Japanese quartz movement. Mineral crystal. Water resistance 30 metres. Licensed Smith & Wesson product, manufactured in Hong Kong. Retail price approximately $49 to $59. Worn by Jensen Ackles as Dean Winchester in Season 1 of Supernatural (2005), the first in a watch progression across fifteen seasons that includes Luminox, MTM Special Ops Black Patriot, Suunto Vector, Suunto Core All Black, Hamilton Khaki Field Titanium Automatic, and Garmin Fenix 5 Plus.