Tudor Prince 7909

[freebalkany]

Hello good people of RWI,

I recently got lucky and found a complete case set including everything except the movement for a tudor 7909 watch for less than 150€.

I'm pretty positive the dial and caseback are original (because of the radium burn on the dial), as for the mid case and the crown I am not sure.

One of the weird detail of the case is that the lugs are drilled, but only on one side. I have never seen that before.

The hands have been striped from their radium lume, so I might need to apply some new lume.

Anyways, my goal with this project is to find a new movement that I can hopefully just drop in. I know that the original Tudor 390 is very difficult and expensive to find and also not a particularly good or reliable movement.

So far I have identified two potential candidates:

* FEF 380 (shock protected): this is the base movement for the original tudor caliber. As far as I know it should be a drop in replacement. It will need a movement ring because the diameter is different. But otherwise, dial and hands should fit. The drawback is that the watch won't be automatic anymore.

* ETA 1256/1257: This is an early auto movement from ETA, I also know that tudor used the hand wind version (1080) in a lot of watches. According to Ranfft hands should be same diameter. As for the dial feet, they look similar, but there is no way to know.

Both movements seems to have the same stem height as the original tudor one. And both movements will require a ring.

What do y'all think?

Thanks

 

[manodeoro]

the case could be an old oyster prince one from early 50ies ... drilled lugs opposed to the crown side only ...
in any case such a detail says "gen" IMO ... I've never seen such a special feature on any rep cas

 

[p0pperini]

the case could be an old oyster prince one from early 50ies ... drilled lugs opposed to the crown side only ...
in any case such a detail says "gen" IMO ... I've never seen such a special feature on any rep cas

Fascinating. I'd never seen or heard of this feature before. And as you say, it's the kind of thing you'd never expect to see reproduced on a rep case. I have a gen 7965 Oyster Prince and the case is conventionally drilled all-round. Seeing this makes me wish mine also had the wacky two lugs drilled look.

 

[manodeoro]

Fascinating. I'd never seen or heard of this feature before. And as you say, it's the kind of thing you'd never expect to see reproduced on a rep case. I have a gen 7965 Oyster Prince and the case is conventionally drilled all-round. Seeing this makes me wish mine also had the wacky two lugs drilled look.

7965 is too recent ... 35mm oyster prince models from 1950/1952 were done like this ...
Some early bubble-back and semi bubble-back Rolex had the same feature.
And YES it's something to have in the collection ... I even thought about laser welding that one to half close the lug holes on the crown side but I like it as it is.
I'll certainly do that one day on a spare case I have.

 

[p0pperini]

7965 is too recent ... 35mm oyster prince models from 1950/1952 were done like this ...

Yeah, mine's a 1964 example - my birth year, which is why I bought it.

It's a quirky, neat little feature and it makes sense too - there's really no need for all four lugs to be drilled right through.

 

[manodeoro]

Yeah, mine's a 1964 example - my birth year, which is why I bought it.

great ... mine is a 2012 rep but one day I'll re-engrave it to make it a 1959 oldie ...

 

[freebalkany]

Hello there,

here is an update on what I have been working on for this project. First of all, it's going to be a fantasy watch assembled from parts that were not supposed to go together. I know for instance that the dial doesn't belong in an oyster case because "oyster" is not present on the dial.
Anyways, I managed to finally find a shock protected FEF 380. As expected the dial feet are fitting just fine and the stem is aligning properly.
Also the movement is missing an hour wheel...

The issue I'm having at the moment is how am I going to secure the movement to the case?

As you might have by now, this watch will be hand wound only. Therefore I have another question: once the movement is fully wound, how can screw down the crown?

 

[369mafia]

Cool project. I also like this dial configuration because of its similar layout to the Everest watch ref 6098.00

regarding your project, it looks like the mvmt holder fits in the case I would get some of the longer movement tabs and file them to length and button it up should hold it well enough for the daily wind.


I have a 7909 that I picked up just at the beginning of the pandemic Its mostly original ( except crystal) and has some radium burns on the dial
It also has the drilled lugs on the 9 o'clock side only .

 

[freebalkany]

Nice, does yours still has the tudor 390 caliber ticking inside?

 

[369mafia]

Nice, does yours still has the tudor 390 caliber ticking inside?

Yes, all original

It does surprise me how slept on this reference is considering it was a watch that actually was used in an expedition something unlike the explorer .
(I create these vintage distressed watch ad art pieces)




before I bought it, I was planning on piecing one together with an ETA but parts started to get hard to find and then the prices of parts shot though the roof.