In this, my second installment, I want to talk aboutTudor Home Plate, the Swiss watchmaker's first chronograph. Those who know me know of my fervor forTudor. For me, its status as a “younger sister” brand of RolexIt doesn't detract from it at all, quite the opposite.TudorIt has shared many things with the Swiss brand par excellence and at the same time it enjoys a flexibility that it does not have. For me this condition makes it very special!
Tudorhas given us some incredible models throughout its history, many of them similar toRolexand that today they are reaching levels of collecting never seen before. There are, however, modelsTudorthat never had a counterpart inRolex. One of them, and perhaps the most famous, is the first chronograph ofTudor, the legendary 7031 from 1970, also known as“Home Plate”, which I want to talk to you about today.
The name derives from the popular American sport of baseball. The 4th base or “home”, which is where the runs of the so-called “King of Sports” are scored. It has a pentagonal shape and is called Home Plate. HeTudor Home PlateIt has indexes with that shape, hence the name.
I have said it many times.Tudorhas been a laboratoryRolexmany years and whoever wants to know this brand in depth must know the history of Tudor perfectly, if not, there is a world left to understand. This is so.
It was precisely in theTudor Home Platewhere many of the things that would make up the most sought after chronograph there is, the Rolex Daytona, were tested. At the end of the 60sTudorI was testing this larger case, whose bezel measures 39.5 mm. The manual Daytona of the time measured 37mm. He also tried what would become the watchword of the Daytona automatic, crown guards, with the exception that Tudor did it 19 years before Rolex.
El Tudor Home Platealso rescues a characteristic seen fleetingly inRolex: the square crown guards. These were the first type of protectors that the Submariner incorporated, both theRolexlike that ofTudor, in the now legendarySubmariner 5512 y Tudor 7928from 1959 and of which it is said that... only a few dozen were made!
Do you want to read more details about theTudor Home PlateAnd the different versions of this incredible chronograph that are known? Well, as always, you'll have to wait for us to publish the second part, and that will be next Wednesday. Until then!
Gustavo
