7021 Submariner

Tudor's first Sub with a date...

In 1969 Tudor released the reference 7021 Submariner Date. If we look at the Rolex world, this roughly co-incides with the realease of the 1680 – the Rolex Submariner Date. This model was the first Tudor Submariner with a date and featured the ETA calibre 2484. Early versions were fitted roulette date wheels, where the even numbers were in red text and the odd dates in black.

Black and Blue

The 7021 watches were only ever available in the snowflake configuration, never with mercedes-pattern hands like the 7928s and later 79090s. Early versions of the watches suffered similar dial issues as the non-date reference 7016. Collectors refer to these watches as ‘Bubble’ dials now and they have a strong following amongst collectors.

Blue 7021 with clean blue dial, but nice faded bezel inlay. I believe these dials were slightly later (click to zoom)

Photo

Bernhard Bulang

Blue 7021 with 'Ghost' bezel inlay and bubble dial. Note how the blue dulls down to almost black (click to zoom)

Photo

Ross Povey