It is a more compact watch, with its 39mm case diameter better suited my slim wrists than the 42mm Speedmaster. The Tudor had won me over from day one and I haven’t looked back since. With the strap adjusted, I slip the Black Bay into my pocket – I try to avoid carrying expensive watches in their retail boxes in public, since they are such an easy target – and head home.ĭuring the next nine months, I think I wore my Speedmaster twice, before admitting to myself that it must be sold. At the Westfield London shopping centre, deserted to the point it felt like a post-apocalyptic film set, the assistant told me how just one navy 58 arrived from Tudor each week, but that demand had been huge. In late-2020, I was finally invited by Goldsmiths to pay up and collect my Tudor. Likely, and somewhat ironically looking back now, owing to the Omega Seamaster worn by Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond in the mid-Nineties. I’ve adored stainless steel diving watches with blue dials since I was a child. I was already familiar with the original black colourway, but when the navy model arrived in the strange and quiet summer of 2020, I knew I had to have one. Then the Tudor Black Bay 58 caught my eye. Back on Earth, the Hesalite grazes and scratches very easily, and while it is equally quick to polish, there’s a constant fear over just how much it can take, and the massive cost of repair if it were to ever break. Further fragility comes from the Hesalite crystal, which domes beautifully over the dial but is chemically much closer to plastic than glass or scratch-resistant sapphire – a conscious decision from the Apollo days, as broken pieces of plastic floating through a spacecraft pose less danger than glass. By its very nature, the leather strap of mine added a sense of fragility, the supple leather wearing, creasing and eventually cracking slightly from the daily grind. Manually winding the movement four times a week served as a moment to appreciate the watch in all its beauty to pause, take a breath, and ponder what the next 40-or-so hours will have in store before the next winding.īut the Speedmaster isn’t a perfect watch. But it was my favourite by far, and worn almost every day.
It shared a watch box with less valuable timepieces from Mondain, Christopher Ward, Tissot, Withings and Apple. Despite this, my Speedmaster was never alone on my bedside table.
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