Eaglemoss Military Watches Collection.
Issue 21 - 1980s French Naval Diver
by
, Jan 4, 2015 at 09:57 AM (6913 Views)
The French Navy started to use Tudor brand divers watches for Naval Divers and Marine Commandos in the 1960s.
Tudor is a more affordable sub brand of Rolex, they use Swiss ETA or Valjoux movements but have similar styling.
The specification of the watches used changed over time to a Blue Dial/Blue Bezel configuration from the 80s.
Case
Polished (possibly chromed) 40mm asymmetric case, 42mm including the recessed guarded crown, 46.6mm lug to lug, 11mm deep. 31.2mm interior aperture.
Non rotating 39.4mm bezel has a dark metallic blue insert with silver coloured Arabic numerals at 10 minute intervals. 5mm dia grooved crown.
Case back engraved with description of the watch. 30mm flat glass.
Dial
32.5mm dark blue enamel painted dial with green hour marks with white borders. Triangle marker at 12, rectangular at 3-6-9, squares at other hour marks, white printed minute scale at outer edge.
Sword style hours hand, straight style minutes hand with triangle tip and thin straight seconds hand with a hexagonal shape near the tip. All have luminous green infill.
Epson AL55a movement.
Strap
20mm dark mustard coloured PU backed fabric strap, polished Buckle, aprox 175-215mm fitting.
Simple steel bracelet
Of course what we have here is a very similar watch to the issue 3 British SBS watch, which represents a'Rolex MilSub'.
Side by side, you get a polished case rather than brushed, but the dial is printed rather than embossed.
The Sand PU/canvas strap on the 'Tudor' version feels to be much better quality than the Blue Nylon.
Quite a large proportion of the collection so far have been 'Diver' style watches. Here are 8, including the Special edition.