Tudor Hydronaut II Automatic Black Dial 20030 on Bracelet
Ref: 20030

Points of Mention

This watch is sold as "Watch Only" and therefore comes with no original Tudor box or paperwork. The watch comes paired with its original Tudor bracelet and will fit up to a 7-inch wrist. The watch is from Circa. 2008/09 and is sold in worn but fair condition as you can see, a full case and bracelet refurb can be provided at an additional cost. The watch comes with our 12-Months Warranty.

The Watch

Here we have a Tudor Hydronaut II 20030 with a 40mm polished stainless steel case, tapered lugs with a lug-to-lug length of 46.5mm and a thickness of 10.5mm give the watch an impressive wrist presence. On the right side, is a screw-down signed crown with crown guards. The bezel has the first 10 minutes engraved with the remaining minutes recessed silver on black Arabic numerals, and the flat sapphire crystal sits above a matte black dial. The outer minute track has red accents above the applied baton indexes marking the hours, at 3 o’clock, a date window. Thick baton hands coated in luminescence are complemented by a lollipop sweeping seconds hand, text is precisely printed at 12 and 6, respectively, with the water resistance highlighted in red. On the reverse, a coin-edged screw-down case back, inside an automatic ETA 2824, 25 jewels, 28,800 beats per hour. The watch comes fitted on its Tudor 21mm stainless steel bracelet with a signed folding clasp.

Personal Note

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 their 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 greater 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.