Tudor

The name preceded the company. In February 1926 a Geneva watch dealer, the house of Veuve de Philippe Hüther, registered the trademark “The TUDOR” for Hans Wilsdorf, who held the sole right to use it, and in 1936 transferred it to him outright. The early watches, mostly rectangular or barrel-shaped, carried the Tudor name and sometimes Rolex’s too.¹

Wilsdorf wanted a watch his agents could sell for less than a Rolex that would still be as dependable. On March 6, 1946, he formed Montres Tudor SA to make it, with Rolex guaranteeing its technical standards and handling distribution and after-sales service.^1, 4

Tudor’s Oyster Prince Submariner arrived in 1954: a self-winding watch with a screw-down back and crown rated to 100 metres, luminous hands and markers, and a rotating bezel to time a dive. Its movement was built on a bought-in Fleurier base, while its crown and bracelet were signed Rolex. A thicker case doubled the rating to 200 metres in 1958, and the model settled into its lasting form in the early 1960s, a line in the history of Dive watches.⁵

In 2015 Tudor announced a movement of its own, certified as a chronometer by COSC. Its movements come from Kenissi, a manufacture founded in 2016, and since 2023 its watches have been assembled and tested in its own building in Le Locle, in the Jura mountains, beside a Rolex site opened in 1970. Until then assembly had been done in Geneva.^2, 3