Introducing: The Tudor Black Bay Ceramic
Tudor is always an exciting brand to look at during Watches and Wonders. This year, the brand hasn’t disappointed, with a host of new releases. The new Tudor Monarch looks very cool, and so does this Black Bay Ceramic. Let’s dive in.
Tudor is no stranger to ceramics, but today, we get a watch with a ceramic bracelet and a very cool, dark look. The Tudor Black Bay Ceramic comes with a sandblasted case with beveled and mirror-polished edges to provide some visual depth. The all-ceramic bracelet, which is no small feat to produce, will no doubt be lighter than what we would expect from a stainless steel watch. The bezel insert, which is also ceramic, has a subtle sunray satin finish.
Introducing the Tudor Black Bay Ceramic
Tudor has done a cool thing here. Unlike the older ceramic Black Bay, this watch comes with fully darkened details. Even the lume inside the applied markers is dark in tone, adding to the “going dark” aesthetic. Let’s get to the specifications. We have a 41mm case with a 13.55mm thickness and a 49.4mm lug-to-lug. These are wearable dimensions, as many Black Bay owners can attest. I would hazard a guess that because this is a ceramic watch, lighter, and all black, it will look smaller in real life.
The brand describes the dial as “charcoal,” which I think is a pretty apt description, going off the press photos. The screw-down crown is in black PVD-treated 316L steel, with the famous Tudor rose in relief. Tudor also uses black PVD-treated steel for the bezel, although its insert is ceramic, as mentioned. But while not all the components of this watch are ceramic, that might be a little beside the point.
A sturdy and technically capable caliber
Like all its steel counterparts, the Black Bay Ceramic is water resistant to 200 meters. Inside beats the Kenissi manufacture caliber MT5602-U. The “U” designation indicates that this is a caliber that has undergone METAS testing. METAS has a more stringent method of testing than COSC. METAS requires a Master Chronometer-certified watch to run within a tolerance range of 0 to +5 seconds, while COSC certification allows for a daily deviation of -4 to +6 seconds.
The power reserve of the MT5602-U is 70 hours, which certainly means you can place the watch on your bedside table on Friday and come back to it after the weekend to find it still ticking. Furthermore, adding a full-ceramic bracelet to this watch is no small accomplishment. Ceramic is a difficult material to work with, and so to see this watch come with an all-ceramic bracelet surprised me (in a good way).
Concluding thoughts
I have handled a few ceramic watches while working as a writer for Fratello, and they never cease to impress me. I expect this €7,110 / US$7,725 / CHF 6,300 Black Bay Ceramic will do so too. One of those, the special IWC Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) watch, was particularly impressive as I took it out on a very hot day. The ceramic stayed stable in temperature on my wrist the whole day, even in the middle of dunes and very hot conditions. I would expect the wearing experience of this new Black Bay to be similar, and that’s great!
But what do you think, Fratelli? Let me know in the comments. As the owner of a blue Black Bay 58, I appreciate the design cues here, and this watch seems to provide a very cool look.
