Teddy Baldassarre
Tudor Black Bay Fifty Eight: Our Guide to All the Watches
Tudor returned to the U.S. market after a lengthy absence in 2013 and the Rolex-owned brand had its first big hit in this modern era with the launch of the Black Bay (originally the Heritage Black Bay), a stylish, sporty divers’ watch, with a plethora of historical details drawn from Tudor dive watches of yore. 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, which proved to hit the sweet spot for many contemporary enthusiasts. Named for the year 1958, in which Tudor released the Oyster Prince Submariner Ref. 7924, the most clear forerunner to the Black Bay, the Black Bay Fifty-Eight models match that watch’s 39mm case diameter, which is downsized from the 41mm-to-43mm sizes still common to the core Black Bay series. Since its launch, the Black Bay Fifty-Eight has become one of the most popular extensions of the expanding Black Bay collection, and has been the stage for Tudor’s recent (and historically rare) forays into the realm of precious metals. Descended From a Prince: Black Bay DNA The aesthetic origin of the Black Bay starts with the Tudor Oyster Prince Submariner, released in 1954, one year after big brother Rolex rolled out its own much more famous purpose-built dive watch, also called the Submariner. This original version, Ref. 7922, used the same “Mercedes” handset found on many Rolex models and was water-resistan...
