£900.00
A classic early-1960s Tudor with a warm gold-plated case, silver dial and strong angular lugs. This is an interesting triple-signed Tudor, with Tudor markings on the dial, caseback and movement.
The silver dial has a clean period design with applied gold-tone Arabic numerals at 3, 6, 9 and 12, slim baton hour markers and a central seconds hand. Small luminous dots are positioned around the hour track, while the open-work hour and minute hands also contain luminous infill. The old luminous material has been replaced with a safe non-radioactive lume compound, aged to match the original appearance of the watch.
The case is marked Ref. 1328 and has a 20-micron gold-plated finish with a stainless-steel snap-on caseback. Inside, the back is signed Tudor and carries serial number 403215 together with the MLB case-maker’s mark. MLB was the mark used by Maeder-Leschot S.A. of Biel/Bienne, a specialist Swiss watch-case manufacturer.
Serial number 403215 places this watch around 1963 according to commonly used Tudor serial-number tables, which place approximately 390,000 in 1963 and 430,000 in 1964. The early Tudor rose logo and the overall design are also fully consistent with this period; Tudor’s own historical material shows the rose-logo era continuing through the early 1960s.
Inside is the Tudor calibre 1160, a traditional 17-jewel manually wound Swiss movement. The copper-coloured movement is clearly signed TUDOR 17 RUBIES, completing the triple Tudor signature of this example.
The watch is fitted with a domed acrylic crystal and a high-quality brown Italian leather strap, which works particularly well with the warm gold tone of the case.
Tudor was established by Hans Wilsdorf, the founder of Rolex, as a sister brand offering reliable Swiss movements in high-quality cases made to Rolex standards. Many vintage Tudor watches from this period are especially interesting because they combine Tudor-signed dials and movements with Rolex-signed gold cases. This example follows exactly that tradition: a Tudor watch with a Rolex case, British hallmarks, and all the character expected from a late-1950s presentation piece.
Inside is the Tudor calibre 1160, an ETA-based manual-wind movement.
