Tudor Black Bay vs. Rolex Submariner – What’s in a name?

Following up on my last article detailing my meandering journey through the watch world, I would like to take the opportunity to examine and, frankly, iron out my relationship with some of the flagship divers from my two favourite luxury brands. As I explained in my last piece, I am something of a Black Bay collector myself (picture the meme), having fallen for the 79220N Heritage Black Bay in 2015. Prior to this, however, I had already decided two years previously that I would buy a Rolex Submariner one day, somehow. Today, I want to focus on the 79220N Heritage Black Bay, the 79000N Black Bay 54 and the 124060 Submariner in my collection. To the uninitiated, this is almost like having the same watch three times over! So, how do they compare, and more importantly, how are they different enough to co-exist?

79220N Heritage Black Bay

The darling of my collection, my first Swiss watch, my first big watch purchase, and my 30th birthday to myself: it’s almost impossible to be objective with this one, but I’ll try. Released by surprise in October 2015 and discontinued at Baselworld 2016, the 79220N was only in production for a few months, making it a very rare bird. While that’s a fun fact, I’m pretty sure I would love this watch if there were 1,000,000 of them out there, too. Stylistically, it has the gilty features, smiley dial, rose logo, and red triangle that make this a ‘greatest hits’ of Tudor’s 1950s divers.

I LOVE gilt dials from vintage timepieces, and they make my heart sing every time I look at them. It’s one of those watches that you can look at ten times an hour and maybe actually notice the time just once. The pros of this watch, for me, are all about those wonderful good looks. It is also robust, without feeling heavy to me, and benefits from a scratch-resistant sapphire and subtle (i.e., not shiny) aluminium bezel insert. I’ve worn it ruggedly for nine years, and it still looks fantastic.

The use of an ETA 2824 also means the 79220N is relatively reliable and will easily outlive me. A 70-hour power reserve and better anti-magnetism would be a bonus but not a deal-breaker for me. Critics will say it is slab-sided, tall on the wrist, and hard to hide under the cuff. True, it is ~12.7mm thick, but I say it is unapologetically proud! I have a 175mm wrist for context, and it sits perfectly for me. How often do you look at your watch from that sideways angle anyway??

One of the Tudor T-fit clasps, with tool-less 8mm adjustment, would be preferable to the ol’ ‘3-holes and a spring bar tool’ clasp it has, but again, I am lucky that it fits me sweetly enough. There is always the complimentary black fabric strap, too, for the summer months if things do get tight.

So, on balance, I would sum up that the 79220N has all the beautiful 50s-era diver looks but also shows how far Tudor has evolved their watches since 2015. Still, my grave watch, I’m hopelessly devoted to it, but it’s technically outperformed by the more modern Tudors.

79000N Black Bay 54

Speaking of the modern wave of Tudors, the Black Bay 54 looks to replicate and gently modernise the original Tudor Submariner, model 7922. For those people wishing to see a modern Tudor Submariner, this is it, people!

On paper, it’s an absolute hit: 37mm case, Tudor in-house caliber with 70hr power reserve and silicon hairspring, 11.2mm slim case, and a bracelet that has tool-less adjustment thanks to the T-Fit clasp. It loses the Big Crown, as this did not come along until the 1958 7924 model (the sire of the Black Bay 58), and does not have the red triangle nor the 15 minutes of markings on the bezel, as these features were only added later than the original 1954 7922 Submariner launch, following feedback from divers about legibility.

Canonically, then, this is a perfect watch for Tudor collectors like myself: allowing us to own a watch that is spiritually super-close to the original from 70 years ago, which would be almost impossible to find or afford for the normal watch community at large.

In my collection, the watch struggles for wrist time, as it is up against my beloved 79220N and the Rolex Submariner 124060. When I look down and do not see the huge crown, smiley dial, or red triangle, my brain always brings back an error message before allowing me to adjust.

So, in summary, it’s a great watch, and I highly recommend it for all its clever integration of past styling with modern technology: it’s not the watch’s fault that my heart lies elsewhere!

124060 Rolex Submariner

It was a winding road for me to get from Seiko SKX009J to the 124060 Rolex Submariner in 10 years. I have arguably been building up to it with the Seiko divers, then all the Tudors, so the peak of the mountain was always going to the Submariner.

I could have got one back in 2018, but the maxi-case generation didn’t speak to me, so I took a sidestep to the 39mm Explorer. I loved that watch, but often found myself thinking “if only I could take all the best bits of the 79220N and the Explorer and put them together”, so my subconscious clearly knew that I wasn’t ‘done’ with owning a Sub’.

When the entire Submariner range was re-released in 2020 with the revised case and new 32xx generation movement, taking the watch back towards to the styling proportions of the 5-digit generation (i.e. 14060 and 14060M), I knew that the new ‘non-date’ was the watch I needed. It took until 2024, and the departure of the Explorer, before things were in the right place for me to get the watch. 10 years after starting the watch journey, I had reached the destination!

So how does that feel?

Well, the 124060 is a beautiful watch, and I am proud to own it, naturally. It wears incredibly, thanks to the Oyster bracelet, which also has the Rolex Glidelock for on-the-fly tool-free adjustments, and its only ~12mm thick, so lovely and svelte. It’s easy to forget you are wearing it. Rolex clearly think about every little detail of the wearing experience, making it remarkably comfortable on-wrist.

At ~159g, its quite light. However, it carries a lot of weight, metaphorically speaking. There’s an excellent Rolex video with James Cameron, when he fleetingly talks about the sensation of there being two phases to owning a Rolex Submariner: being able to purchase one, but then feeling he needed to earn the right to keep wearing it. I know exactly what he means.

Being a Rolex owner, in general, is a privilege of circumstances, and there are over 100 years of heritage and cultural capital to the name. Owning any Rolex is a statement, therefore. To me, the statement one makes with a Rolex Submariner is that you are serious about yourself and what you do. Wearing one is communicating that you are ready for action, capable, determined, and extraordinary. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a relatively confident and outwardly professional guy, but the Submariner is intimidating.

For all the above points, combined with the £8050 retail price (but really £10k on the open market), and the beautiful, polished case and ceramic bezel insert, it is not a watch for the faint of heart.

The Explorer is more subtle, more understated, and perhaps this ultimately suited me better, but I am a great believer that life begins at the edge of your comfort zone. So ultimately the Rolex Submariner crowns my collection, bringing an end to its decade-long evolution, and leaves me satisfied, if somewhat humbled, by its presence.

Picking my lane

You could probably guess where it was going to end. For me, the Goldilocks sweet spot is my 79220N. Outwardly very attractive and robust, but with the IYKYK elements of being the “Tudor Divers Greatest Hits” and a low-production rarity.

Non-watch folk (Wuggles?) would not give the watch two looks once you said it’s a Tudor and not a Rolex, but that’s part of what I love about it: I can enjoy it for me every day, and share it with people who are interested, without feeling the pressure of wearing The Crown. Then, when a big occasion demands the Big Guns, I can bring out the Rolex Submariner. I have the best of both worlds at my disposal.