TUDOR Heritage Black Bay DARK

By TLex This black beauty is the new Heritage BLACK BAY Dark from Tudor. It has been finished with a deep black PVD-treatment giving it an entirely black satin military-esque finish.

I would imagine that PVD was chosen rather than DLC as it is probably more in keeping with the Black Bay�s vintage military roots. However PVD or Physical Vapor Deposition coating is in fact a NASA derived technology!



Despite its contemporary black coating, all the historic characteristic elements of the Heritage Black Bay line remain. Its basic form, as well as a domed dial and crystal from the first TUDOR Submariners of the past and of course the famous prominent winding crown from the Ref. 7924 of 1958 AKA the Big Crown.



This wouldn�t be a Tudor diver it wasn�t also fitted with a set of Snowflake hands taken directly from the divers watches that were issued in large quantities to the French National Navy in the 1970s.

However for me the coolest stand-out features have to be the water-resistance indication engraved in red on the dial, and the red triangular 12hr marker on the rotatable divers bezel. Two simple touches, but both of which are important historic design features that Tudor have revisited in the new Black Bay Dark.



Power comes from a COSC certified variant of the movement manufactured by TUDOR and developed for the Heritage Black Bay model. It displays hours, minutes and seconds, and proudly bears the reference MT5602, in which MT stands for, Mouvement TUDOR.



It has a power-reserve of 70-hours meaning that its wearer can, for example, take off the watch on Friday evening and put it on again on Monday morning without having to wind it. Beating to a frequency of 28,800 beats/hour or 4Hz, the movement is regulated by a variable inertia oscillator with silicon balance spring, held in place by a traversing bridge.



The Heritage Black Bay Dark comes with a choice of either a black PVD-treated steel bracelet or an aged leather strap with a black PVD-treated steel folding clasp; each Heritage Black Bay Dark model is also supplied with an extra grey fabric strap.