1957 Tudor 9ct Gold "Cushion" 7346 Manual ETA 1250 Rolex Case
Ref: 7346
Specification
Lugs : 17mm
Condition : Pre-Owned
Box & Papers : None
Case Material : 9ct Gold
Warranty : 12-Months NON-Waterproof Warranty
Points of Mention
This watch is sold “Watch Only” and therefore without its Tudor box or paperwork. The watch comes paired with a vintage well-suited 17mm leather strap with a pin buckle. The watch is from Circa. 1957 and is in a used but overall in fair condition for its age as you can see from the photographs. The watch comes with our 12-Months NON-Waterproof Warranty.
For more photos see here - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sINNGBrHq1HJrETfw588fwGB3I-NxRsd?usp=drive_link
4K YouTube video, skip to 17:39 - https://youtu.be/VTHvDGc-w64
The Watch
Here we have a 1957 Tudor 7346 Manual ETA 1250 with a curvaceous 29mm 9ct Gold "Cushion" case made by Rolex that curves over your wrist with fine fixed lugs, and a lug-to-lug length of 35mm and a case thickness of just 8mm ensure a comfortable fit. On the right side is a small push/pull crown, the smooth bezel has chamfered flowing edges holding a domed crystal above a white dial with an even patina. An outer minute track is precisely executed surrounding applied Gold Arabic numeral and arrow point indexes marking the hours, delicate Gold sword hands sit above a sub-seconds at 6 o’clock. The raised indexes magically play with the light as you rotate your wrist. At 12 o’clock we have the printed Tudor Rose motif completing this elegant dress watch. On the reverse a 9ct Yellow Gold snap-off case back with the Gold hallmarks stamped inside, a manually wound ETA Cal. 1250, beating at a leisurely 18,000 beats per hour. The watch comes paired with a well-suited vintage 17mm leather strap with a pin buckle.
Personal Note
It's not every day a watch like this comes across my desk, so when they do I snap them up! This beautiful 9ct gold cushion-cased Tudor features a simple, yet perfectly aged, dial and elegant hands that have lost most of their luminescent material over the years leaving a hollowed hand which works perfectly! The case is made by Rolex as you'd expect and inside is a manually wound ETA 1250. All this can be had for well under £1,000 which I find incredible, still undeniable value to be found in the vintage watch world!
The Brand
The Tudor trademark was first registered in 1926 by the Swiss watchmaking company “Veuve de Philippe Hüther” on behalf of Hans Wilsdorf, the founder of Rolex watches, Wilsdorf took it over himself in 1936. Just after the second world war, Hans Wilsdorf Founder of Rolex knew that the time had come to expand and give the Tudor brand a proper identity of its own. The Tudor Rose started to appear on their dials from this time, thus, on 6 March 1946, he created the “Montres TUDOR S.A.” company, specialising in models for both men and women. Rolex guaranteed the technical, aesthetic and functional characteristics, along with the distribution and after-sales service. In 1948 we saw the first Tudor-specific advertising, a few years later they introduced the TUDOR Oyster Prince in 1952, Hans Wilsdorf allowed Tudor to use their waterproof Oyster case and the original self-winding Perpetual ’rotor’ movement. This was an exclusive arrangement that benefitted both brands, development soon commenced with the introduction of the TUDOR Oyster Prince Submariner, reference 7922 in 1954, this watch was quickly adopted by the French Navy in 1956. Building on its reputation of robustness in 1961 the Rose was replaced by the shield. Later in 1969, we saw the design changes in Ref. 7016 where for the first time square indexes and angular hands nicknamed “Snowflake” allowed for a more significant amount of lume to be applied; this was appreciated by the divers of the French Navy. Today these innovations can be seen in the Black Bay and Pelagos collections. In 1971 Tudor introduced the Oysterdate chronographs nicknamed “Monte-Carlo” due to their resembling a roulette wheel. Celebrating their 50th anniversary in 1996. In that same year, Tudor decided to shed Rolex-signed components such as the cases, crowns and bracelets in favour of Tudor-branded ones. Today Tudor uses their in-house movements developed initially in 2015 in collaboration with Breitling.