Vintage Rolex Tudor Men’s 17J 10k GF Classic Dress Watch 1930s
Rolex Tudor
Mechanical (Manual)
1930-1939
Gold Filled
Beige, Cream
Leather
Not Water Resistant
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ADDITIONAL SPECIFICATIONS
► ARCHIVE FILE: TUDOR — BRAND HISTORY
Registered in 1926 as Hans Wilsdorf's cheaper Rolex, Tudor put Oyster cases around bought-in movements, saw its Submariners issued to French and American navy divers, and now builds its own calibers in Le Locle.
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The Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf had a simple idea for a second brand: Rolex where it counted, cheaper everywhere else. Veuve de Philippe Hüther, a watch firm in Colombier, registered The Tudor for him in 1926; he took the trademark himself in 1936 and set up Montres Tudor SA on March 6, 1946. The recipe: a Rolex Oyster case and guarantee around a bought-in movement, so a vintage Tudor often says Rolex on its crown and case back.
The self-winding Oyster Prince of 1952 was advertised on miners and construction crews, not models. The Submariner reference 7922 followed in 1954, rated to 100 meters. Tudor built reference 7928 for the US Navy from 1964. In 1969 references 7016 and 7021 brought the angular hands collectors call the Snowflake, shaped to hold more luminous paint, and the rose vanished from the shield logo. The French Marine Nationale tested Tudor Submariners from 1956 and issued them to its divers from the late 1950s into the 1980s, from 1974 stamping M.N. and the year on case backs.
By the 1990s a Tudor was still a Rolex case around an ETA movement. The Submariner left the catalog after 1999, and Rolex pulled Tudor from the American market, in 1996 by some accounts and 2004 by others, explaining neither. The revival ran through the archive: the Heritage Chrono of 2010, the Heritage Black Bay of 2012, and a US return in 2013. The 2015 North Flag carried Tudor's first in-house caliber, the MT5621.
Montres Tudor SA is still in Geneva beside Rolex, both owned by the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation. The watches are built in Le Locle, in a complex finished in 2021 and inaugurated in March 2023 that Tudor shares with Kenissi, the movement maker founded in 2016 and 20 percent Chanel-owned since 2018. In April 2026, its centenary year, Tudor revived the Monarch, a 1991 line. On September 1 the North Flag came back too, spelled Northflag now, with a GMT function. A modern Black Bay is the old Submariner redrawn, Snowflake hand included.
