After launching 925 silver and yellow gold versions of Black Bay Fifty-Eight, Tudor has gone for bronze for its first-ever boutique edition.
The new Black Bay Fifty-Eight Bronze shares characteristic proportions of the brand's first divers' watches, particularly the 7924 reference or Big Crown launched in 1958, which is reflected in its name.
The 39mm bronze case is an aesthetic nod to the bronze on old ships and deep-sea diving equipment. Used in naval engineering for submerged parts, the high-performance aluminium bronze alloy offers a high level of resistance to corrosion.
Moreover, the "living" metal develops a subtle and unique patina on the case. The entirely satin-brushed finishes guarantee the homogeneous development of this appealing patina.
The choice of bronze requires extensive processes and meticulous craftsmanship to make the case.
The case making requires meticulous craftsmanship and dedicated processes that take into consideration how bronze is a material whose appearance evolves rapidly according to its environment.
The bronze used by Tudor is made into bars, which in turn are cut into slugs that are small cylinders a few centimetres in length. The slugs are then heated to a high temperature before being stamped individually while hot using a friction screw press, applying a pressure of many tonnes.
As soon as it emerges from the furnace, this cylinder of raw material instantly adopts the rough form of the watch middle case. From this point, no fewer than 40 additional steps are required to obtain a bronze case.
Successive machining processes create the final shape and craft the functional parts while other steps give the surfaces their final appearance, produced by machine or by hand.
The choice of bronze requires extensive processes and meticulous craftsmanship to make the case.
The manufacturing operations, as well as the assembly and final tests of the Black Bay Fifty-Eight Bronze model, are carried out with meticulous care. All handling must be carried out using gloves and according to a specific workflow, particularly for waterproof tests, between which, each watch is entirely dried in order to preserve its new, non-patinated appearance.
The Black Bay Fifty-Eight Bronze is Tudor's first model with a matching bracelet produced entirely from bronze. The riveted bracelet with a satin-brushed finish will develop a patina at the same pace as the case.
Also satin-brushed, the new bronze clasp features a redesigned cover and Tudor "T-fit" rapid adjustment system, which requires no tools to adjust the length of the bracelet.
The choice of bronze requires extensive processes and meticulous craftsmanship to make the case.
The additional strap pays tribute to the brand's naval heritage. For several decades the French Navy had Tudor watches delivered without bracelets and then fitted them with their own straps, handmade or otherwise.
One of them, found on a period diving watch and conserved in the brand archives, is made of elastic recovered from a French rescue parachute. The relic characterised by a central yellow thread inspires the complimentary bronze-brown fabric strap, woven on 19th century Jacquard looms by the Julien Faure company in the St-Etienne region in France.
Like other models in the Black Bay family, the Black Bay Fifty-Eight Bronze features a dial inspired by Tudor divers' watches from the 1950s and characteristic angular "Snowflake" hands introduced in 1969, with grade A Swiss phosphorescent Super-LumiNova coating.
The choice of bronze requires extensive processes and meticulous craftsmanship to make the case.
The domed dial is in matte bronze-brown, shaded concentrically from the exterior towards the centre. The bronze unidirectional rotating bezel features the same gold accents found on the hands and hour markers.
The bronze boutique edition is powered by Manufacture Calibre MT5400, certified as a chronometer by the Swiss Official Chronometer Testing Institute with its performance going beyond the standards set by this independent institute.
The "weekend-proof" power reserve provides about 70 hours, which enables the wearer to take the watch off on a Friday evening and put it back on again on Monday morning without resetting.
