Submariner

Tudor's Submariner was a diving watch built around a sealed steel case, luminous hands and a rotating ring for measuring elapsed minutes. The first appeared in 1954. Over the next four decades, changes to movements, crystals and dial layouts gradually altered the watch without abandoning that basic equipment.

The relationship with Rolex is visible on surviving examples. Tudor used Rolex-signed cases, crowns and bracelets while fitting movements from other suppliers. The Tudor name on the face and a Rolex signature elsewhere could therefore be part of the original construction, not a contradiction.

In 1969, square hour markers and square-ended hands gave some Submariners a markedly different face. Collectors called the hands “snowflakes.” Those broad luminous shapes remain familiar because Tudor later brought them into the Black Bay and Pelagos. They were not used on every Tudor Submariner, however. The late 79090, introduced in 1989, returned to a dial with round and triangular markers and the more familiar segmented hour hand.

The 79090 and its 1995 successor, the 79190, both retained a 39 mm case and a date. Their clearest difference is the transparent cover: acrylic on the earlier watch, sapphire on the later one. The 79190 also brought a more sharply notched rotating ring, and some later examples used an engraved polished-steel insert rather than a coloured one.

Tudor's history records 1999 as the Submariner's last catalogue appearance. The name disappeared, but the individual design decisions did not. The modern families draw on different parts of that long production history, which is why a new Tudor diver can look familiar without closely matching any one old Submariner.