Rolex's sister house, with its own movements now — and a vintage market full of replaced parts.
Founded 1926Geneva5 weighted checks
Tudor was founded by Rolex's Hans Wilsdorf to sell Rolex-cased watches at a lower price, which is exactly why its vintage market is complicated: many old Tudors sit in Rolex cases with Rolex crowns and Rolex bracelets, and telling a correct period-original watch from a later assembly is the real work.
Modern Tudor is a different proposition. Since 2015 the maison has made its own movements, and current production has its own case and bracelet identity. Counterfeits of the Black Bay exist and are generally poor.
The two reads that matter most are the movement — which should be what the reference specifies, whether an ETA base on older modern production or an in-house calibre on newer — and, on vintage, whether the case, dial, hands and bracelet all belong to the same period.
Tudor engraves its reference between the lugs at 12 and its serial between the lugs at 6, in the same manner Rolex used, and vintage Tudor cases are frequently stamped Rolex on the caseback and the crown because that is where they were made.
That inheritance is genuine and is not evidence of a fake. What it does mean is that vintage Tudor is assembled and reassembled freely, so the serial's era should agree with the dial's design, the hands' style and the bracelet's reference.
Modern production carries its own serials and a warranty card. No public lookup exists.
Ordered by how much each one settles. The decisive checks are the ones worth your first five minutes; the supporting ones only matter once those are clean.
A Tudor reference specifies its calibre — a modified ETA base on much modern production, an in-house MT calibre on newer references. The movement inside must be that calibre. This usually requires opening the case, which is a watchmaker's job.
On a vintage Tudor, the case serial's era, the dial's design, the hand style and the bracelet's reference should all belong together. A snowflake-hand dial in a case from a decade that never had them is an assembly. This is the dominant problem in vintage Tudor and it is not counterfeiting.
Vintage Tudor used a rose logo, later a shield. Printing is sharp at magnification with correct spacing, and applied logos are level. Redialled vintage Tudors are common and show as printing that is slightly soft or spacing that is slightly wrong.
Modern Tudor cases are finished cleanly with defined boundaries between brushed and polished surfaces, and the bracelets are solid-link with a machined clasp. Hollow end links or a stamped clasp on modern production are failures.
Lume on a vintage dial and on its hands was applied at the same time and should have aged to the same tone. A mismatch means replaced hands, which is honest servicing and a material fact.
Outright counterfeit Tudor is a smaller problem than at Rolex because the price point offers less margin, and the fakes that exist are usually crude. The real work in this maison is period consistency on vintage watches, where genuine parts from different decades are combined into watches that never left the factory that way.
A vintage Tudor with a service dial is genuine, correctly serviced, and worth substantially less than the same watch with its original dial. That is the distinction that matters here.
Each of these is checked differently. The ones with their own page have enough that is specific to them to be worth reading separately.
A titanium diver with a helium valve, where the case material's weight is the first read.
Read within the checks aboveAuthenticity and value are separate questions, and answering the first is usually a step towards the second. These are broad ranges for honest, unrestored condition — an orientation, never an appraisal.
| Line | Resale as share of retail | What moves it most |
|---|---|---|
| Black Bay, in-house movement | 60 – 85% | Reference, bracelet, completeness |
| Black Bay, ETA-based | 50 – 70% | Condition and generation |
| Pelagos | 55 – 75% | Generation and titanium condition |
| Vintage Submariner | Well above original retail | Originality above all |
Broad international ranges. Vintage Tudor is priced on originality in a way modern Tudor is not.
Lovenhall WatchThe checks tell you how it was made. The instrument tells you what it appears to be, and roughly what its kind fetches.