Tudor love... with Ross Povey

In a collaboration between Ross Povey and Bulang & Sons we are happy to present you 2 great looking classic gilt dial Tudor Submariners and add some information and love for those great and often underrated watches.

They just look awesome on the wrist. Great style and classic warm looks … a great watch to get into vintage Rolex/Tudor collecting.

Ross is a great guy from the UK and he wanted to share his passion for Tudor also in combination with the style of Bulang & Sons. So when he wanted to sell his watch he asked me to join forces and add some cool lifestyle to the watch. But we also wanted to share more love for these watches and give some more information about these 60’th Tudor Submariners. Check his blog for much more Tudor love and information on the subject.

Thanks Ross for doing this together and sharing the info down below:

Tudor Submariner 7928
A Decade of Evolution…

Following the success of the no-crown-guard 7924 ‘Big Crown’ Submariner, Tudor launched their new model Sub in 1959 with the addition of protective guards to give the watch a greater chance of staying watertight when in use by divers. This model was given the reference 7928 and was a big commercial success for Rolex.

The early Tudor Submariners were very closely associated with the Rolex Submariners, using common parts with the sister brand; including cases, crowns & bezels (this practice actually continued until Tudor launched its second generation ’Sub’, the Hydronaut reference 89190). Of course the significant difference between the sister watches was that Rolex used third party movements, that they modified in-house, for Tudor Submariners. Modified movements from Fleurier, the caliber 390, powered the 7928s and workhorse movements were reliable in the main, the only issue being sometime complications with the rotor assembly. Tudor used this automatic movement and a manual wind version in its dress watches too. This arrangement continued until approximately 1968, when Rolex switched to ETA movements. With this change came a new reference, the 7016 Submariner.

Like all things Rolex, there were myriad permutations of this watch over its near decade long run. Three different case styles and many different dial styles mean that there are a lot of research opportunities for Passionistas! The very early watches had what collectors call ‘square’ crown guards. This style of guard was also seen on some early 5512 Rolex Submariners. It became apparent quite quickly, however, that these crown guards made unscrewing the winding crown quite difficult and so Rolex changed the profile of the guards to pointed (PCG).

This was initially done by grinding down the guards on existing stock and then issuing a new style of pointed crown guard watch. Eventually, as with the Rolex Submariners, the pointed crown guards were replaced with the rounded crown guards; a shape that continued throughout the life of Tudor Sub (with odd variation here and there!).

One of the largest areas of interest in the vintage watch collecting world is the transition of dial types. This is especially true in the vintage Rolex arena. The 7928 had a number of dials over its run and I’ll attempt to give a very brief overview. Like all things there is a difference of opinion on these things; a new variation appeared only last year that we hadn’t seen before! Essentially there were five main dial variations (excluding underline and transitional versions etc):

All gilt writing with gilt closed minute track
Silver writing with gilt closed minute track
Silver writing with gilt open minute track
White writing with gilt open minute track
White writing with open white minute track (shield logo)

1961 version

1966 version

The watch Ross is offering is from 1966, with a beautiful dial featuring the gilt closed minute track and silver writing. The caseback has the infamous VI 66 stamping (instead of IV 66, representing the fourth quarter of 1966 as we would expect). Nobody is sure why these dials are stamped as such; either a mistake or a mischievous Rolex employee having some fun!

What we do know is that this is a very cool Submariner and would look cool on a leather strap with a suit or on a NATO for a fun adventure!