OVERVIEW

It seems as if the most iconic designs in the tool watch world were borne not just out of aesthetics, but also out of necessity. The design of the Snowflake dial was heavily influenced by the French Navy (otherwise known as Marine Nationale) whose divers wanted a watch that was more legible underwater and the large square hour plots and large snowflake hands provided enough lume to be visible in very low light conditions. Today, the Tudor Snowflake Sub has become one of the most coveted vintage Subs across both Rolex & Tudor because of its history, charm and uniqueness, especially with No Date & especially in blue.

While examples of a no date blue Snowflake sub are already scarce, this example from 1968 is a reference 7016 with serial 624xxx which was made with four other dial variations: Small Rose (which is a design carry over from the Tudor 7928), Maxi Rose, Shield Logo, and Black Snowflake. This very early blue Tudor Snowflake for the most part looks exactly like the snowflakes to come after it, yet is the only one to feature a SWISS only designation at the bottom of the dial. The rest say T SWISS T.

A big reason good examples are so scarce is not simply low production or increased demand, but mostly because they were used as actual tool watches with many watches having replaced dials & hands. Also, many early to mid 70s snowflake dials were made using a defective paint that would start to bubble and continue to get progressively worse. To get a sense of how hard it is to find one of these, my buddy Robi who owns the tudorsub.com website keeps a database of known SWISS only blue Snowflake 7016’s and says so far only 9 are known to still exist.

How’s that for rare?

CONDITION NOTES

CASE: Excellent and honest case. Definitely worn and possibly lightly hand polished in the past but original chamfers are still sharp and apparent.

DIAL: Attractive dial with some minor aging and small mark near post.

HANDS: Original handset with original lume slightly lighter in color than that of the dial.

MOVEMENT: Running optimally and in clean condition. All important parts are original.