Hands On: New Tudor Watches from Watches & Wonders Geneva 2024

The world’s biggest event devoted to luxury timepieces, Watches & Wonders Geneva, is in full swing this week, showcasing new watches from more than 50 brands, from industry titans to trend-setting boutique brands and independents. Among the most anticipated new releases, as always, are those from Rolex-owned sport-luxury specialist Tudor. Below we offer a hands-on preview of the year’s most intriguing new Tudor watches of 2024.

Tudor Black Bay “Monochrome”

The Background: The Black Bay collection has been the undisputed flagship of the modern Tudor portfolio since its introduction in 2012. Its appeal to collectors springs from its elegantly melded hodgepodge of elements from several different iterations of the brand’s fondly remembered dive watch, the Oyster Prince Submariner. These include the so-called “snowflake” hour hand, drawn from the Submariner Ref. 7016 from 1969, and the large screw-down crown, with engraved Tudor rose emblem, from the 1958 "Big Crown" model. The geometrical hour markers — round dots and rectangles, with a dominant inverted triangle at 12 o’clock — are derived from Tudor Submariners on the market in the ‘60s and ‘70s. The core Black Bay family, directly descended from the original Heritage models, are sized at 41mm with cases predominantly in steel and dive-scale bezel inserts made of anodized aluminum.

What’s New: The new “Monochrome” edition of the 41mm Black Bay is a sober yet oh-so-sleek iteration of the vintage-inspired sport watch, matching a matte black dial with an anodized aluminum dive-scale bezel in the same hue. Silver-toned indexes and hands, both in the recognizable Black Bay style, provide a sharp and legible contrast. Enthusiasts will also appreciate the smaller details, like the engraved Tudor rose emblem that now appears on the screw-down crown. The most important upgrade occurs on the inside: Tudor has outfitted the new Black Bay with a new, proprietary movement, the automatic Caliber MT5602-U, which achieves its lofty “Master Chronometer” designation by earning certification for its accuracy, robustness, and antimagnetic properties from not one but two prestigious Swiss testing agencies, COSC and METAS. Equipped with a silicon hairspring, the movement delivers the Black Bay a power reserve of 70 hours. Tudor offers the Monochrome edition on either a three-link or five-link steel bracelet as well as a black rubber strap.

How Much and When? On the rubber strap, the Black Bay Monochrome retails for $4,225. The bracelet versions sell for $4,425 (on the three-link) and $4,550 (on the five-link). All are available in April 2024.

Tudor Black Bay 58 GMT

The Background: Tudor introduced the first Black Bay GMT in 2018, taking the classical design of the Rolex GMT-Master (made by Tudor’s parent company) and giving it a contemporary spin that is also distinctly 21st-Century Tudor. While the Black Bay GMT owes an obvious aesthetic debt to Rolex’s iconic travel watch, it also fits firmly within the design language of the Black Bay, with its bezel sporting a bicolor 24-hour ring on which the wearer can read a second time zone thanks to the dial’s GMT hand. The famous bright red-and-blue “Pepsi” bezel of Rolex’s original GMT-Master is here slightly modified to a more muted indigo-and-burgundy combo. Last year, Tudor expanded the collection with a silvery-grained white-dial version in its original case size of 41mm.

What’s New: For the first time, a GMT model joins the versatile, megapopular subfamily of the Black Bay, the Black Bay 58, whose origins are detailed below, and which has found favor among enthusiasts for its understated 39mm case diameter. The steel case of the Black Bay 58 GMT will fit the bill for many wearers with its 12.8mm thickness and 47.8mm lug-to-lug measurement. Its bicolor 24-hour bezel has a glossier finish for a more vibrant aesthetic, the “snowflake” handset has added layers of Super-LumiNova for legibility, and the movement inside is the automatic Caliber MT5440-U, boasting both a COSC certification as well as a METAS certification as a “Master Chronometer; its power reserve is 65 hours, just shy of the 70 hours offered by the non-GMT-equipped base caliber. The Black Bay 58 GMT comes on either a sporty black rubber strap or the classic Tudor riveted steel bracelet.

How much and when? The Tudor Black Bay 58 GMT retails for $4,400 on a rubber strap and for $4,600 on a steel bracelet. The watch is available in April, launching concurrently with its reveal at Watches & Wonders 2024.

Tudor Black Bay 58 18K

The Background: In 2018, in response to growing consumer demand both for more modest case sizes and for greater period authenticity in vintage-style timepieces, Tudor introduced the Black Bay Fifty-Eight, named for the year 1958, in which Tudor released the Oyster Prince Submariner Ref. 7924 “Big Crown,” the most clear forerunner to the Black Bay. That watch matched the 39mm case diameter of that vintage model, which became the default case size of the Oyster Prince shortly after the first models were sized at 37mm. In the past, Tudor has used the Black Bay 58, whose core models are in steel, to delve into other metals such as bronze and even into more upmarket styles in silver and yellow gold.

What’s New: For the first time in 2024, the Black Bay 58 arrives in a full yellow-gold case, the most high-end version also boasting a solid yellow-gold three-link bracelet. Both the case (39mm in diameter and a relatively modest 12.7mm thick) and the bracelet feature a predominantly satin-brushed finish for a luxurious yet non-flashy presentation. The “golden green” of the dial, with its matte-gold details like the familiar geometric indexes and snowflake hands, is a shade specially chosen to resonate harmoniously with the case and the matte-green bezel, made of anodized aluminum. The bracelet, which is minus the retro-style rivets of its steel predecessors, has Tudor’s “T-fit” clasp for easy lengthening and ceramic ball bearings to help ensure a comfortable closure. The movement inside is the COSC-certified automatic MT5400, with bidirectional winding and a 70-hour power reserve.

How Much and When? The Tudor Black Bay 58 is on sale now for $32,000 in its all-gold bracelet version. At press time, prices had not yet been set for the models on straps, but one can assume they will be somewhat less than those on the bracelet.