Tudor Watches
Swiss luxury watch manufacturer
Montres Tudor SA, or simply Tudor, is a Swiss watchmaker based in Geneva, Switzerland. Registered in 1926 by Hans Wilsdorf, founder of Rolex, the brand remains a sister company to Rolex; both companies are owned by the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation. Tudor was initially known for watches produced for the military and professional divers. From the 1960s to 1980s, several navies issued Tudor Submariners to their divers, including the US Navy SEALs and the French Marine Nationale.
History
Origins
The Tudor trademark was registered in 1926 by Swiss watchmaking company Veuve de Philippe Hüther on behalf of Hans Wilsdorf, founder of Rolex watches. In 1936, Wilsdorf took it over and went on to found the company Montres Tudor SA in 1946.
Tudor's purpose was to offer a more affordable watch than Rolex while maintaining Rolex-like quality. Tudor watches were originally equipped with off-the-shelf movements paired with Rolex cases and bracelets, allowing Tudor to provide reliability and quality while achieving its price goals.
Tudor debuted its Oyster collection in the mid-forties, featuring a waterproof Oyster case previously exclusive to Rolex. In 1952, Tudor released its first self-winding model, the Prince, which used a Rolex self-winding mechanism.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tudor Watches” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.