Of all the watches from the Rolex Tudor
stable, none is as controversial as the Tudor Ranger. Tudor retained the name
Submariner on their watches, right through until the introduction of the
Hydronaut. Interestingly, they did not use the Explorer moniker on their 3-6-9
dialled watches; instead opting for the name Ranger. What follows is by no
means a definitive study on these watches, but merely my own observations based
on watches that I’ve seen over the years and a couple of mistakes made in my
early collecting!!
What we can be sure of though, is that
there were two versions available. A manual wind non-date and an auto with date
function. As per basic Tudor protocol the auto version bears the name ‘PRINCE’,
which is Tudor’s equivalent of Rolex’s ‘PERPETUAL’, and ‘OYSTERDATE’. The manual wind non-date version just
bears the label ‘OYSTER’.
Photo by TomVox1
Photo by J Dowling
The root of the issues with these watches
is the fact that, unlike virtually all other Rolex and Tudor watches, the
Ranger didn’t originally have it’s own allocated reference number; so we can
legitimately see some Tudor Oyster models as either dress watches or Rangers
depending on how they were put together in Geneva by Rolex! By way of example,
a generally accepted Ranger ref is 9050 yet there are many 9050s in existence
as standard Prince Oysterdates! The same is true of the reference 7966, another
generally accepted Ranger model yet also widely available as a bog-standard
Prince Oysterdate.
It wasn’t until the introduction of the ref
90330 and 90220 (non-date models) in the 1980s that the Ranger got its own
specific model reference.
There seem to be accepted examples of
Rangers in the following references:
Non-date:
7992, 7934, 7995, 7965, 90330 & 90220
Date:
7964, 7966, 7990 & 7996
So how can you tell if what you have is an
original Tudor Ranger? Well, the first give away is if the font of the word
Ranger is in red. This is a debate that has lasted for any years and I have no
doubt will continue for many years to come. There are anecdotal stories of
Rolex Authorised Dealers claiming they sold them many years ago and one or two
prominent dealer/collectors are adamant that they’ve seen an honest example
from an original owner. Whilst it is impossible to rule this out (Texas dialled
Paul Newman Daytona anybody??) I
believe it is safe to say that they do not exist. Why did anybody ever create
these dials, my best bet is that it was to ‘cash in’ on the Red Sub (Rolex
Submariner ref 1680 where the text SUBMARINER is in a red font) phenomenon and
make them a little more desirable. I remember a few years ago that at any one time
there were thirty or so listed on eBay. Here in the UK there was a seller
selling them under a number of different eBay user accounts…….and yes, I fell
victim to them and bought one. I was lucky and got a refund after posting pics
on the VRF, but others have been less fortunate.
There are a few things that I look for when
inspecting a Ranger. The first is the font printing and dial texture. This
something that Tom Harges (TomVox1 – VRF Mod) pointed out in his post when he
bought an original Ranger in 2011. The Ranger’s dial texture and font, when
examined under a loupe, are very very similar to that of the Rolex sports
models of the time (1970’s). The difficulty with this is that firstly the
prospective purchaser has to have some experience of examining 70’s Rolex
sports watches (Submariners, GMT Masters etc) and secondly if buying the watch
online it is very difficult to tell from photographs.
Photo by Ross P
The second thing to look for on the
OYSTERDATE models is a gap between the words OYSTER and DATE.
Compare the above picture to the one below
– ‘mind the gap!!’
Counterfeit Hands and Dial
You can also see in the above picture that
the minute hand flares from the inside to outer tip. A genuine minute hand
should resemble a minute hand from a submariner i.e. straight, not flared.
More info to come……
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