Stone C. Lasley
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Tudor

Tudor celebrated its hundredth birthday on 17 February 2026, and the paper it counts from tells a stranger story than the celebration did. The Swiss trademark gazette records mark no. 61318, "THE TUDOR", deposited at 8 a.m. on 9 March 1926 by "Veuve de Philippe Hüther, fabrication, Colombier": a small watch firm in the canton of Neuchâtel, run by a widow (SHAB, 15 April 1926). Hans Wilsdorf's name isn't on it. His name appears ten years later, when the mark was transferred to him at 18 rue du Marché in Geneva (SHAB, 23 November 1936). The company that makes Tudor watches wasn't registered until 1946, at the same address, which the register gives as "chez Montres Rolex S.A." (SHAB, 12 March 1946).

That address runs through the whole history. Tudor was Wilsdorf's answer to a business problem: how to let Rolex's agents sell a cheaper watch without cheapening Rolex. He put bought-in movements inside Rolex's patented Oyster cases, signed the dials with another name, and had Rolex stand behind the result. For forty years that made Tudor the watch French Navy divers, US Navy divers and Arctic expedition members wore. It also made Tudor easy to file as a lesser Rolex, and by 2000 the brand had, in Revolution's words, "lost its way" (Revolution).

The second half of the story is the better one. Since 2010 Tudor has mined its own archive for the Heritage and Black Bay lines, gone back into the American and British markets it had left, made its own movements from 2015 and opened its own factory in Le Locle in 2023. Tudor's history pages tell most of this well. They're vaguer about the 1926 paperwork, the movements it bought in, the quartz years and the decade it spent out of the West. Those parts are here.

Timeline

These are the best-supported dates. Where sources give different years, the era sections say so.

Year Event
1926 "THE TUDOR" deposited in the Swiss trademark register by a Colombier watch firm, 9 March; Tudor says on Wilsdorf's behalf
1932 The first Tudor watches on Tudor's history page, sold in Australia
1936 The mark is transferred to Hans Wilsdorf
1946 Montres Tudor S.A. registered in Geneva, 6 March, at Rolex's address
1947 Tudor dates its first Oysters, such as the 4463, to this year
1952 The self-winding Oyster Prince; the British North Greenland Expedition
1954 The 7922, Tudor's first Submariner
1956 The French Navy's diving research group starts testing Tudor Submariners, on Tudor's account
1958 The 7924 "Big Crown", Tudor's first 200 m diver
1969 Snowflake hands on the 7016; ETA movements; the shield replaces the rose
1970 The Oysterdate 7031/0 and 7032/0, Tudor's first chronographs
1974 The first "M.N." case backs for the French Navy
1976 The 9400 "Big Block", Tudor's first automatic chronographs
1995 The 79190, the last reference Tudor called a Submariner
1996–2004 Tudor leaves the US, the UK and Japan (sources differ on the US year)
2010 The Heritage Chrono
2012 The Heritage Black Bay and the Pelagos
2013 Tudor Watch USA is set up; the Black Bay wins the GPHG Revival Prize
2015 The first Tudor-made calibres, MT5621 and MT5612
2016 Kenissi, Tudor's movement company, is incorporated
2021 The Black Bay Ceramic, Tudor's first Master Chronometer; the Pelagos FXD with the French Navy
2023 The Le Locle factory is inaugurated
2026 The centenary; the Monarch returns

A name registered by someone else, 1926–1945

The register is clear about who filed the mark and silent about why. Philippe Hüther had founded a watch-manufacturing business in Colombier in 1917 (SHAB, 28 July 1917). By February 1926 he had died, and a new firm in his widow's name took over the business, entered in the register on 24 February (SHAB, 1 March 1926). Two weeks later that firm deposited "THE TUDOR" for watches, watch parts and cases. Tudor says the house registered the name "for Hans Wilsdorf" and that he "acquired the exclusive usage rights from the dealer" (Tudor). Its centenary page dates the registration to 17 February, the day it now celebrates (Tudor). The gazette shows only the widow's firm and 9 March. I found no document explaining why the founder of Rolex, who filed plenty of marks himself, had a manufacturer in Colombier file this one.

The handover is on the record. The trademark office registered the transfer of mark 61318 to Hans Wilsdorf on 14 November 1936. Tudor gives 15 October, which is probably the gap between signing an agreement and filing it.

There's a second puzzle in the dates: when the first Tudor watch was sold. Tudor's centenary page says the first were made in 1926. Its own history page starts in 1932, in Australia, where Tudor watches went "exclusively to the Willis company" for distribution to jewellers. I'd go with 1932, which is the date the history page commits to and the one collector Ross Povey gives (Watchonista). The watch Tudor shows from these years is a rectangular chrome-plated piece with a dial signed both TUDOR and CATANACH'S, the Melbourne jeweller. David Catanach told Time+Tide the shop sold Tudor in the 1930s and 1940s (Time+Tide). Povey says the cases came from several makers, the Rolex Watch Company among them, and Tudor says the Rolex name appears on "some rare pieces".

The rose arrived about when Wilsdorf took the mark. Tudor puts "the rose of the TUDOR dynasty" on its dials from 1936, inside a shield it says stood for strength and grace. That reading is Tudor's. I found no statement from Wilsdorf on why he picked an English royal name, and the rose is the only evidence that he had the dynasty in mind.

A company at Rolex's address, 1946–1953

Montres Tudor S.A., registered in English as the Tudor Watch Co. Ltd., was entered in the Geneva register on 6 March 1946 under articles signed on 26 February. Its stated purpose was "le commerce de montres", the trade in watches, with CHF 250,000 of capital, two directors and a three-man board. Wilsdorf, "de nationalité anglaise", sat on it as a member, not as chairman. Tudor prints his reasoning:

For some years now, I have been considering the idea of making a watch that our agents could sell at a more modest price than our Rolex watches, and yet one that would attain the standard of dependability for which Rolex is famous. I decided to form a separate company, with the object of making and marketing this new watch. It is called the TUDOR watch company.

That's Tudor's text (Tudor). I couldn't find the original document, and other outlets quote it in slightly different words.

The split of duties was explicit. Rolex would "guarantee the technical, aesthetic and functional characteristics, along with the distribution and after-sales service". Tudor supplied a name, a dial and a movement bought from someone else. The Tudor Oyster 4463 had a 34 mm Oyster case, Rolex's patented crown and Tudor's calibre 59, which Tudor says was based on the FHF 30 from Fabrique d'Horlogerie de Fontainemelon (Europa Star). Tudor dates its Oyster line to 1947; Povey says the first appeared in 1946 (Revolution). Tudor's first adverts of its own ran in 1948, and Tudor says they were "clearly associated with Rolex, both in the text and in the logo".

In 1952 Tudor got an automatic. The launch campaign for the Oyster Prince quoted Wilsdorf: "I have decided that the TUDOR Prince deserves to share with Rolex two advantages I would allow no other watch to use – the famous and unique waterproof Oyster case and the original self-winding Perpetual 'rotor' mechanism" (Tudor). The second half of that needs a careful reading. Tudor's own description of its watches from these years gives the self-winding calibre 390 as "developed on a Fleurier movement-blank" (Tudor). The rotor idea came from Rolex. The movement came from Fleurier.

The Oyster Prince went to the Arctic in its first year. Tudor says 26 of them went with the British North Greenland Expedition of 1952 to 1954. The expedition, led by Commander James Simpson, had 30 men, according to Newcastle University, which holds its archive (Newcastle University), and Spear's puts the number of watches at 30 too (Spear's). Tudor keeps one of the watches in its archive (Tudor). Then, in 1953, came the advertising Tudor calls the "Trial of Destruction", which Tudor says Rolex ran: an Oyster Prince on a coal miner's wrist through 252 hours of digging, on a pneumatic drill for 30 hours, on a motorcycle racer for 1,000 miles. Those tests are the adverts' own claims, and I found no independent record of any of them. What they do show is the job Wilsdorf gave Tudor. It was the Oyster for people who worked with their hands.

Divers and navies, 1954–1968

Tudor's first diver, the Oyster Prince Submariner 7922, came out in 1954, rated to 100 m, with calibre 390 inside and a bracelet "signed with the Rolex logo" (Tudor). Rolex's own Submariner arrived at the same time; Phillips puts the 7922 and Rolex's 6200 in the same year (Phillips). The 7923 of 1955 was the only Tudor Submariner with a hand-wound movement, an ETA 1182. In 1958 the 7924 brought a 200 m rating and an 8 mm crown that collectors call the Big Crown. Christie's, which dates it to 1958 and 1959 only, says that apart from the movement and dial it's the same watch as Rolex's Big Crown Submariners of the time (Christie's). The 7928 of 1959 gave Tudor its first crown guards, and it changed through the 1960s from square guards to pointed to rounded.

The French Navy is the customer that made Tudor's name among divers. Tudor says the Toulon-based underwater research group, the G.E.R.S., started testing 7922s and 7923s at the beginning of 1956, and that its commander then asked for watches rated to 200 m (Tudor). Phillips puts the first order in 1954 (Phillips). I'd take Tudor's date, because it names the unit and the references, but neither side shows the paperwork. Tudor is careful on one point: the watches it sold to navies "were neither custom-designed nor specially developed. They were just references listed in the catalogue" (Tudor).

The US Navy bought them too. Tudor holds a 7928 made in 1964 with "U.S.N., ST-2/015, OCT.68" engraved on the case back. Watches of Espionage, which illustrates its account with a 1984 US National Archives photograph of a SEAL wearing a Tudor Submariner, says the 7928 was the watch most commonly issued to SEAL teams into the 1970s (Watches of Espionage). Claims for the navies of Argentina, Israel and Canada rest mostly on one collector's database (Revolution), so I'd call them likely and unproven.

Away from the water, Tudor tried things Rolex didn't. The Advisor 7926 of 1957 was an alarm watch with an A. Schild calibre, made until 1968 in "a few thousand pieces"; two later versions ran to 1977, and the name didn't return until 2011 (Tudor). The Ranger was a dial more than a model: black, with large 3, 6, 9 and 12 numerals, fitted to ordinary Oyster Prince cases. Tudor shows an example from 1967 and lists the Ranger in its catalogue from 1969 to 1988 (Tudor). Because the Ranger shares its case references with plain Tudors, a donor case and a reproduction dial make a convincing fake, and Rescapement notes it has been called "the most faked vintage watch" (Rescapement).

Wilsdorf died on 6 July 1960 (Fratello). I found no source that names who ran Tudor after him, or anyone who ran it before 2009. For most of its life Tudor was a Rolex product line with a company of its own and no public face.

Snowflakes, chronographs and a long drift, 1969–2008

In the 1969 catalogue the Submariner changed in three ways at once. The new 7016, and the 7021 with a date, had square hour markers and matching hands that collectors call snowflakes. The Fleurier-based calibre gave way to ETA's 2483 and 2484. And the dial carried a shield where the rose had been (Tudor). Tudor says the hands were designed for legibility under water. Collectors credit the French Navy, while Watchonista reports Tudor's official line that the navy "simply picked existing references from the catalog" (Watchonista). Nothing I've read settles it. The logo change was gradual in practice: Rescapement finds rose and shield dials overlapping for a few years before the official switch.

From 1974 the French Navy's watches carried the engraving collectors look for, "M.N." and the last two digits of the year of delivery, starting with the 7016 (Tudor). The 9401/0, with an ETA 2776, replaced the 7016 in the mid-1970s and was supplied to the navy until the 1980s, Tudor says. The evidence is best for this watch. A blue-dial 9401/0 engraved "M.N. 76" sold at Phillips with a copy of the navy ledger listing its case number and the submarine it served on, and made CHF 40,000 against an estimate of CHF 8,000 to 12,000 (Phillips).

Tudor's chronographs start in 1970 with the Oysterdate 7031/0 and 7032/0: 39 mm, a hand-wound Valjoux 7734 and pentagonal hour markers that collectors call home plates (Tudor). The 7100 series, the "Montecarlo" to collectors, followed in 1971 with the column-wheel Valjoux 234 (Tudor). In 1976 the 9400 series brought the Valjoux 7750, and with it "the first chronographs in the history of TUDOR to be equipped with self-winding movements" (Tudor). The thick case the 7750 needed is why collectors call them Big Blocks.

What Tudor did through the quartz crisis is the gap in its own record. Its history pages go from the 1976 chronographs to the 1989 references without mentioning quartz, and I couldn't document a Tudor quartz watch from anything better than a dealer listing. The mechanical line kept moving. The 79090 Submariner of 1989 used an ETA 2824-2 on a bracelet with Tudor's own logo, and the 79190 of 1995 was "the last TUDOR Submariner reference produced". By its fiftieth anniversary in 1996, Tudor says, "the direct references to Rolex were gradually disappearing from the cases, winding crowns and bracelets" (Tudor).

The markets thinned out with them. Tudor left the United States, though the date depends on whom you read. Europa Star said in 2013 that Tudor was coming back "after 17 years of absence", which puts the exit in 1996 (Europa Star), while Hypebeast's report of the same return said Tudor had been away for "close to 10 years" (Hypebeast). It left Britain around 2003, and Japan as well (The Jewellery Editor). What was left was China, which was over 90% of Tudor's sales in 2010, according to SJX (SJX). Revolution's verdict on these years is the one I'd sign: "Its raison d'être had become the mundane task of creating accessibly-priced facsimiles of Rolex watches for the Far Eastern market" (Revolution).

The Heritage revival, 2009–2015

Philippe Peverelli, who came to Tudor from Blancpain and Chopard, became chief executive in 2009 (SJX). Tudor's designer Ander Ugarte later told Revolution that when the relaunch was discussed in 2008 and 2009, the first decision was that every new watch had to be good value, and that the focus had to be Tudor's sports-watch past (Revolution).

The first result was the Heritage Chrono of 2010, which Tudor's press release presented as inspired by the Oysterdate chronograph of the early 1970s. It used the rotating 12-hour bezel of the 7033, a 1970 reference that never got past the prototype stage, in a case grown from 40 to 42 mm (WorldTempus). The watch that changed the company came two years later. The Heritage Black Bay 79220R of 2012 was 41 mm, with a burgundy bezel, snowflake hands and an ETA 2824 (SJX). SJX noted it wasn't a faithful remake of any one old model, and I think that's why it worked: it drew on the 1950s divers without being bound by them. The Pelagos, launched at the same fair, went the other way: titanium, 500 m, a helium valve and a spring-loaded clasp that keeps the bracelet tight on the wrist (SJX). In 2013 the Black Bay won the Revival Prize at the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève (SJX).

The markets came back with the watches. Rolex announced Tudor Watch USA, LLC on 4 March 2013 (aBlogtoWatch), and Tudor went on sale again in Britain on 19 September 2014, in 100 stores, at £1,370 to £5,440 (The Jewellery Editor). By 2016 China was down to less than 60% of sales.

Then Tudor did what it had never done and made a movement. Monochrome dates the research to 2010 (Monochrome). In 2015 two calibres arrived together: the MT5621 in the North Flag, which SJX called "the first Tudor with an in-house movement" (SJX), and the MT5612 in the Pelagos, with 70 hours of power reserve, a silicon hairspring and a chronometer certificate (Revolution). The Pelagos price went from CHF 3,950 to CHF 4,200. A Tudor with its own movement for an extra CHF 250 was a statement about what the brand was for.

Movements of its own, 2016–2026

The movement business got its own company. Kenissi was incorporated in Delémont in July 2016 and moved to Le Locle in 2019 (Zefix); Tudor calls it "the TUDOR movement production facility founded in 2016" (Tudor). Who owns it has been less clear than who runs it. In 2019 SJX, citing Le Temps, reported that Kenissi's majority shareholder was an industrialist who made sapphire crystals, and that Chanel had bought 20% in March 2018 for SFr20 million (SJX). By 2023 SJX described Kenissi as majority owned by Tudor (SJX). The Swiss register shows Tudor's chief executive taking the chair of the manufacturing company in 2022. It doesn't show shareholders, so the exact split is still unpublished.

The movements also travelled the other way. The Black Bay Chrono of 2017 used the MT5813, which was developed and made by Breitling from its B01, while Breitling's B20 was derived from Tudor's MT5612 (Monochrome). Quill & Pad pointed out that Tudor's press material used the word "manufacture" and explained the B01 origin in the same pack (Quill & Pad). That's a fair summary of the whole "manufacture" question at Tudor.

The watches kept coming. The Black Bay Fifty-Eight of 2018 shrank the line to 39 mm and 11.9 mm with a new, smaller calibre, the MT5402 (SJX). In May 2021 the Black Bay Ceramic became Tudor's first watch certified by the Swiss metrology institute METAS as a Master Chronometer (SJX). That was a first for Tudor and a second for the industry, since Omega had certified the Globemaster in 2015 (Europa Star). The same year Tudor renewed its partnership with the French Navy, and the Pelagos FXD followed in November: titanium, fixed strap bars, developed with the navy's Commando Hubert combat divers and engraved "M.N.21" on the back (SJX).

Tudor also got a building of its own. Construction in Le Locle began in 2018, finished in 2021 and the factory was inaugurated in March 2023. Tudor calls it "the first industrial facility fully dedicated to the TUDOR watchmaking company in its 100-year history", and it moved assembly there from Geneva (Tudor). Monochrome's 2026 visit is a useful corrective to the word "manufacture". Tudor's silicon hairsprings come from an outside Swiss supplier, and its dials, cases and bracelet parts from partner companies who also work for other brands (Monochrome). That's normal in Swiss watchmaking. It's also a long way from Tudor's own line that it "fully masters the manufacturing of strategic components".

Success brought price rises. Fratello tracked the Black Bay Fifty-Eight on a bracelet from €3,430 in 2020 to €4,070 in 2024, and concluded: "Until recently, the go-to brand under €4K was Tudor. With prices going up, however, that reality has shifted. It's safe to say that it could be your go-to brand under €5K nowadays" (Fratello). For the centenary in 2026, Tudor brought back the Monarch, a name from its 1990s catalogue, in a 39 mm steel case with a calibre certified by both COSC and METAS (WatchTime). In September it revived the Northflag as a 40 mm GMT, though SJX pointed out that the original North Flag had never sold well (SJX).

What Tudor gave watchmaking

Tudor's contribution is a business model more than an invention. Revolution describes the formula as Rolex cases, with their screw-down backs and crowns, "combined with outsourced movements, to offer Rolex's famous performance at a more-accessible price" (Revolution). It let Rolex sell into a price bracket it would never enter under its own name, and it put Rolex-grade cases on the wrists of people who would never have bought a Rolex. The cost was the reputation: SJX wrote in 2023 that Tudor "has long suffered from being perceived as a 'lesser' Rolex" (SJX).

The best-documented thing Tudor did for the world beyond watches was supply navies with dive watches at a price they could order in quantity. The French Navy records are the strongest, with ledger copies and decommission papers turning up with auction lots. For the US, Watches of Espionage reports that Tudor held a NATO Stock Number until 2004, though it doesn't name the records (Watches of Espionage).

The Black Bay's influence is real and contested. Time+Tide credits the first Black Bay with helping to ignite the "modern vintage" craze (Time+Tide), and the GPHG jury rewarded it in 2013. aBlogtoWatch credits the Longines Legend Diver of 2007 with starting the reissue trend (aBlogtoWatch), and that date comes first. I'd say Tudor did the most with the idea, not that it had it first.

The newest contribution runs against the oldest. For seventy years Tudor bought movements; now Kenissi sells them, to Breitling, TAG Heuer, Norqain, Chanel, Fortis, Bell & Ross and others (Monochrome). The patents are modest but real: the self-adjusting Pelagos clasp appears to be the one in Montres Tudor's US patent 9,049,906, filed from a December 2011 priority and describing an elastic adjustment for diving (Google Patents).

Two firsts that circulate don't hold. Ross Povey has written that Tudor had a 200 m Submariner ahead of Rolex, but Tudor's own first 200 m diver is the 7924 of 1958, and Fratello dates Rolex's first 200 m Submariner, the 6200, to 1954 (Fratello). And the Black Bay Ceramic was the first Master Chronometer from any brand other than Omega, which Hypebeast put carefully: "Tudor is the first watch brand beyond Omega to have a watch certified as a Master Chronometer, although it is not known whether any have applied and then failed to make the grade" (Hypebeast).

Significant references

Reference Model Years Why it matters
4463 Tudor Oyster 1947 An early Tudor Oyster: Rolex-patent case, bought-in calibre 59
7922 Oyster Prince Submariner 1954 Tudor's first diver, 100 m, Fleurier-based calibre 390
7924 Oyster Prince Submariner, "Big Crown" 1958–1959 First 200 m Tudor; the model the Black Bay Fifty-Eight looks back to
7928 Oyster Prince Submariner 1959–1960s First Tudor crown guards; issued to the French and US navies
7016, 9401/0 Oyster Prince Submariner, "Snowflake" 1969; 1975 to 1980s Snowflake hands, ETA movements, the "M.N." navy watches
7031/0, 7032/0 Oysterdate 1970 Tudor's first chronographs, Valjoux 7734
9400 series Prince Oysterdate, "Big Block" 1976–1989 Tudor's first automatic chronographs, Valjoux 7750
79220R Heritage Black Bay 2012 The revival's core watch; GPHG Revival Prize 2013
91210N North Flag 2015 First Tudor-made calibre, the MT5621
25707B Pelagos FXD 2021 Developed with Commando Hubert; renewed French Navy supply

The Black Bay Fifty-Eight's link to the 7924 is from Worn & Wound's launch report (Worn & Wound), and the North Flag's reference number from its GPHG entry (GPHG).

Tudor today

As of November 2026, Tudor is run by Éric Pirson, chief executive since 2016, when Peverelli left for another job in the Rolex group (SJX). Monochrome describes Rolex as Tudor's full owner (Monochrome), and the legal name changed to MONTRES TUDOR SA in 2025, capitals included (Zefix). Watches are assembled and tested at Le Locle, and nearly all of them use Kenissi movements, the exceptions being the Clair de Rose and 1926 lines. The range runs from the Black Bay, Pelagos, Ranger and Northflag to the Royal, the Monarch, Clair de Rose and 1926.

Tudor publishes no production or sales figures. Morgan Stanley and LuxeConsult estimate its 2025 turnover at CHF 480 million on 180,000 watches, a figure Monochrome thinks is too low (Monochrome). Tudor's view of such estimates is blunt. A spokesperson told Le Temps that the gap between the report and the business was such, "year after year, that we question the relevance of the methodology and the seriousness of the authors of this report" (Coronet).

Sources