Black Bay Date, or Black Bay Fifty-Eight?
Myron Erickson
Black Bay versus Black Bay.
I love Tudor’s Black Bay line of watches. I wrote a review of my Black Bay Steel three years ago when I first got it, and you could be forgiven for thinking that in that time we might’ve fallen out of love, but this watch has never failed to charm me. It tends to be a summer time watch for me, strapped to my wrist for a season’s worth of swimming, canoeing, camping, snorkeling, and mountain bike riding. My Black Bay’s held up perfectly, despite the rugged treatment it sees. But when Tudor introduced its hot little sister, the Black Bay Fifty-Eight, I admit my eyes wandered.
So when a good friend offered to send me his Black Bay Fifty-Eight to try for a few weeks I couldn’t wait to compare the two. Welcome to Black Bay vs Black Bay.
The Black Bay Steel (L) and its sexy sibling, the Black Bay Fifty-Eight (R).
The Excellent Black Bay Steel.
When Tudor first launched the Black Bay line with the handsome ruby red bezel and ETA movement I was interested but thought it a bit overpriced. Nothing against ETA-powered watches — I’ve owned scores and find them very reliable. I’m not what you’d call a movement snob, but I confess I do enjoy variety and experiencing a different and finely crafted movement.
The Black Bay Steel on a nylon NATO. I love its MIL-W-ish look.
A few years later, Tudor announced that the Black Bay would be built with its in-house movement, the brilliant caliber MT5602 (5612 with date), and they once again caught my attention. A year or so after that, however, when they had the audacity to offer the watch in the very MIL-W-esque “steel” color scheme, my goose was cooked. I tried the watch on at a dealer and walked out with one. After paying, of course.
The Black Bay Steel on a burly shell strap, which has contracted laterally a bit from being a swimming strap.
If you’ve never beheld a Black Bay Steel in person, here are the attributes I find most compelling.
Robust, reliable, accurate movement.
Handsome, MIL-W good looks.
Plain but nicely integrated date wheel that isn’t Sore Thumb Ugly.
Authentic Tudor dive watch lineage; not a rebooted brand under new ownership.
Comfortable, strap-friendly case, despite nominally chunky at 41 x 50 x 14.5 mm.
Lume good enough to undo a stuck tent zipper in the middle of the night.
Rolex build quality, but for half the price.
The Black Bay makes an excellent and essential part of your EDC.
The Also Excellent Black Bay Fifty-Eight.
I’ve come to think of my Black Bay Steel as one of the puppies you might get if you left a horny Marathon GSAR alone for too long with an estrous Rolex Sub. But in the same way that black Labrador Retrievers can have black, yellow, or chocolate pups, our GSAR-Sub consummation might also produce the Black Bay Fifty-Eight in the same litter. The BB58 offers the same vintagey Tudor Submariner-inspired looks in a slimmer, more classically sized package, and utilizes the slightly smaller caliber MT5402.
These robust manufacture movements have a sandblasted, utilitarian appearance. See-through casebacks weren’t invited to the party, so you may never have noticed that the balance wheels are Tudor rose-shaped. This is like when you painted your bedroom and didn’t skip your closet. Tudor didn’t have to do this, and almost no one will see it, but they get the bonus points.
Tudor calibers MT5402 (L) and MT5612 (R). Note the rose-shaped balance wheels — nice touch, Tudor. Images (c) Tudor Watch.
Its list of attributes would be a clone of the Black Bay Date’s except for a few things, a couple of which are obvious and the others more subtle. Most notably, the BB58 lacks a date indicator. (And it doesn’t seem too much of a stretch to think that some day there will be a caliber MT5412 when Tudor decides we need the Black Bay Fifty-Eight Date, does it?)
Also, note the depth of the BB58’s black dial — it makes the BBS’s dial look charcoal and two dimensional by comparison. The Fifty-Eight’s dial reminds me of one of my favorite watches, one of the ones I never should have sold, the Lemania Tg-195, whose black dial showed such depth you’d swear it was a pool of crude oil.
Black Bay Fifty-Eight (R) is more shirt cuff friendly.
A quite invisible difference between the two watches is the rather stiff detent at 12:00 on the BB58’s diver’s bezel, a purposeful safety feature I suppose. If my Black Bay Date includes this feature, it’s much less noticeable. I honestly can’t tell if I’m imagining the slightly greater resistance to motion from 12:00 or not, but it’s very obvious when using the BB58’s bezel. One final note on the bezel action of these two divers. Perhaps because the bracelet was fitted, I found the BB58’s much harder to grip, and hence to turn. They appear to be the same thickness, and the knurling is identical, but no doubt about it, the BB58’s was just harder for me to grasp and turn.
The Black Bay for fireside whiskey — the Fifty-Eight on bracelet.
So, which one?
So much for the obvious and invisible differences in function. What wasn’t clear to me until I had them both in front of me is the Black Bay Fifty-Eight’s refined, slightly dressy personality compared to its brawnier littermate, the Black Bay Date. The deep, black dial, the beautiful gold-framed hands, and subtle gold surrounds on the creamy ecru lume plots just make you feel like you’re wearing something special. It’s not a fussy wrist presence, it’s just a little more polished, a little less rowdy. A little more Submariner and a little less GSAR.
The Black Bay Fifty-Eight returns from a dog walk that started out rain and turned to ice.
The most common criticism you’ll hear of the Black Bay Date is to do with its “massive” case. Although the watch does have a chunky appearance, its height is only 14.5 mm, not too bad for a tool watch. And I used to have an Omega Seamaster PO cal 2500D that was only 13.8 mm in height but wore much taller due to its pregnant caseback design. By contrast, the Black Bay Date has a very flat profile and is a comfy, wrist-hugging, strap-friendly proposition. That said, it must be stated that the Black Bay Fifty-Eight comes in at a very reasonable 11.9 mm, making it that much more shirt-cuff-friendly and wrist-huggingly comfy. The profile is identical to the Black Bay Date; there’s just less of it.
The Fifty-Eight’s slimmer profile is appreciated. That’s 2.6 mm difference in overall height.
There was only one thing I didn’t like on the BB58: its bracelet. For reasons I never figured out, it was an arm hair pincher on my wrist. I’m hardly the most hirsute person you’ll find, far from it in fact, and my Explorer’s bracelet literally never pinches me. I guess Rolex saves this tiny bit of bracelet magic for their own bracelets? One thing I appreciate about both of these Black Bays is how strap-friendly they are. I usually wear my Black Bay Steel on a thick single layer shell cordovan strap, but the one time I attempted to fit a shell strap to my Explorer it didn’t end well. So the Explorer just lives on its bracelet, as God and Rolex intended.
Just so you’ll have it all in one place, here’s how the two Black Bay littermates stack up:
Black bay date black bay 58
Diameter, mm 41 39
Length, mm 50 48
Thickness, mm 14.5 11.9
Lug Width, mm 22 20
Water Resist, m 200 200
Power Reserve, hrs 70 70
Frequency, vph 28,800 28,800
Timekeeping, sec/day* +/- 0 +2
Full Reference No. M79730-0006 M79030N-0001
Price, new $3,900 $3,700
*As measured by my Timegrapher oscilloscope thingie with watches laying flat.
Neither of these watches is a reissue or literal reprint of any vintage Tudor watch. Rather, they both draw inspiration from historic Tudor divers of the past. The big crowns are a nod to Tudor’s first dive watch, the reference 7924, which appeared in 1958, and the snowflake handsets are a recapitulation of those on the Submariners Tudor supplied to France’s Marine Nationale in the late 1970’s. There’s a great thread over on MWR focused exclusively on vintage Tudor Subs, but if vintage watch ownership isn’t your cup of tea, I’d recommend considering either one of these modern Tudor Black Bays. They both offer an ideal watch for people who love vintage design cues but prefer modern construction and reliability (cough, me).
The Fifty-Eight is very easy to fit into your life.
I love 38-40 mm watches. So when Tudor first announced the Black Bay Fifty-Eight I remember thinking that if they ever made a Steel version I’d have to trade my Black Bay Steel in for one, but I no longer think this. Within an hour of putting the BB58 on my wrist, I had the realization that comparing it to the Black Bay Date was the false comparison. The more apt current catalog comparison for this watch is the Rolex Explorer ref 214270.
The Black Bay Fifty-Eight. Think of it as a half-price Explorer or a one-third price 14060M.
Here’s the way I see it.
If you’ve ever thought the perfect watch would be a modern Explorer with a diver’s bezel on it, or if you lust after a 14060M Submariner but can’t afford one, the Black Bay Fifty-Eight is your watch. If you have to have a date indicator, or just really dig the MIL-W wrist presence and chunkier GSAR look and dimensions, get the Black Bay Steel and don't worry about the size. I promise it’s perfectly wearable and they do very well on any strap.
Impossible to go wrong with the Black Bay Fifty-Eight.
A word of Thanks.
My buddy to whom this particular BB58 belongs is my friend Matt, aka @workahol. Like me, Matt’s a professional engineer by day, but unlike me he’s also a commercial pilot of both airplanes and helicopters. He enjoys being an amateur machinist and woodworker, and is an enthusiastic scuba diver and downhill skier. He’s also a watch enthusiast, which is what brought us together originally. As though that weren’t enough, he is kept by a mostly-non-evil tabby cat, another thing we have in common. I’ve written before about the friends we make through watch circles; Matt is yet more proof.
This concludes my article on these two brilliant watches from Tudor’s Black Bay line. I always enjoy hearing from other enthusiasts and welcome your comments and factual corrections. Thanks for reading!