Most people, when we talk about luxury watches or high-end watches, automatically think of Rolex, Omega or Patek Philippe. But there are many good watch brands that are unknown to the vast majority. Brands that manufacture watches of tremendous quality, and that, if they had the reputation of others, their models would be highly demanded and valued.
For this reason, from NordWatches we are going to bring you a series of articles talking about these watch brands, from the best known to the least known.
Today we are going to talk about … TUDOR
Foundation
In 1926, the founder of Rolex, Hans Wilsdorf, registered the Tudorbrand for the first time. It was not until 1946 when he founded the Montres Tudor S.A company, based in Geneva. Hans Wilsdorf’s goal was to create a brand that could offer the quality and prestige achieved with Rolex, but at a lower price. Wilsdorf chooses the name as a tribute to the Tudor dynasty of England.
The Tudor house ruled the kingdom of England from 1485 to 1603. Its emblem is a rose that combined the red rose of the Lancasters with the white of the York, both ancestors of Henry VII, the first king of the Tudor dynasty. This rose will be used by Montres Tudor S.A. in different watch models throughout its history. At first as a logo, inside a shield. Subsequently, the shield remains as the logo to this day, and the House Tudor rose is reserved for the crown of Tudor watches.
History
Originally Tudor watches used standard movements, but Rolex quality cases and bracelets. In this way they managed to offer the reliability and confidence of Rolex, but at a lower price.
In the 1940s, they incorporated Rolex’s Oyster waterproof case into their watches.
In 1952 they launched their first automatic model, the ‘Prince’, which used a Rolex self-winding mechanism. That same year, 26 Tudor ‘Princes’ watches were worn on the British expedition to Greenland.
Thanks to the Oyster case and the Rolex automatic winding, Tudor took a step forward and began producing watches as a work watch.
The French Navy itself participated in the field investigation of a Tudor diver’s watch. The Oyster Prince Submariner was launched in 1954 and was water resistant to 100 meters. It would go up to 200 meters in the 1958 model.
From the 1960s to the mid-1980s, watches were supplied to the French Navy in bulk, without bracelets, so all were worn on military-made straps.
In 1964, Tudor also began producing an Oyster Prince Submariner specifically for the United States Navy.
In just a couple of decades, Rolex’s sister brand had established itself on the market as a watch of high quality and reliability.
In 1970 they launched the Oysterdate, their first chronograph.
Tudor Black Bay Fifty-Eight ‘Navy Blue’
Tudor today
In 2009 Tudor reinvented itself and began to relaunch the brand with new watch collections, under the motto “Designed for performance. Designed for elegance”.
- 2010 – They launch the Heritage Chrono, inspired by the “Monte Carlo” of the 70s.
- 2011 – Heritage Advisor, Fastrider chronograph and Clair de Rose collection for women launched
- 2012 – The Heritage Black Bay, a reinterpretation of the first Tudor Submariner models, and the Pelagos diver’s watch, with a titanium case, launched for the first time in the Rolex Group. In addition, it is water resistant to a depth of 500 meters.
- 2014 – Lanzan el Ranger, un reloj de estilo militar similar a un modelo de 1967.
- 2015 – The North Flag is launched, in homage to the British expedition to North Greenland in 1952, which was a watershed moment in Tudor history. This watch was the first to equip an internal movement, the caliber MT5621. Over the next 2 years Tudor would equip all its watches with self-made movements.
- 2018 – Launches the Heritage Black Bay GMT. First Black Bay to have GMT function. This Black Bay GMT has a blue and red bezel, in the style of the Rolex GMT Master ‘Pepsi’.
Here you can find some Tudorwatches for sale.
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