Skip to content

Wristwatches · Wristwatch

Tudor Submariner Marine Nationale 'M.N.', c. late 1970s

DocumentedDocumented from a dealer's listing; attribution and date as stated by the dealer.
Maker / attribution
Tudor (maker)
Date
c. late 1970s
Country of origin
Switzerland
Object type
Wristwatch
Dimensions
Case 39 mm
Stock no.
40990890
Credit line
Dealer listing, Analog/Shift (40990890)
Catalogue title (original)
Tudor Submariner Marine Nationale 'M.N.' (English)

View the source record (dealer listing) ↗ (opens another website in a new tab)Suggest a correction

Record summary

Catalogued by Analog/Shift (dealer), New York (stock number 40990890), this is a wristwatch by Tudor, made in Switzerland, dated c. late 1970s. The Atlas places it in the Quartz Revolution period (1969 – 1990) of its Wristwatches collection. Recorded dimensions: Case 39 mm. The record is illustrated with 6 photographs.

Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.

Catalogue description

Dealer description — Analog/Shift

You should know it by now, we LOVE our military-issued watches. There is arguably no segment of vintage watch collecting with more history or romanticism. We may never know whether a given watch ever weathered active combat on the battlefield or only the inside of a homefront HQ. Either way , we know that military-issued wristwatches were purpose-built, tough as nails, and provided to the servicemen and women who put their lives on the line in the name of patriotism and honor. This particular timepiece, a Tudor Submariner issued to the Marine Nationale, comes with a little more provenance than normal: Accompanying paperwork confirms it was decommissioned from the submarine S.M. Beveziers out of Brest on the French coast in 1999. Dating to circa the late 1970s, this Reference 94010 features a 39mm stainless steel Oyster case with holey lugs , an acrylic crystal, a Rolex signed screw-down crown, a blue bidirectional rotating dive bezel, a lovely blue dial with a matching snowflake handset, and a screw-down case back with the inscription "M.N.79". Slightly faded from use and sun, and with some indisputable industry provenance, this example has just the look and all the character we could hope for after 20 hard years of use as a military tool!

Historical context

Quartz Revolution (1969 – 1990)

Seiko's Astron begins mass quartz timekeeping; traditional industries contract sharply.

Quartz and digital watches transformed the market after 1969. Swiss employment collapsed, Japanese and Hong Kong production soared, and the Swatch (1983) helped the Swiss industry recover; mechanical watches survived as luxury goods.

Read the period in the timelineMore wristwatches from this periodEarlier: Modern Mechanical Horology

Atlas type guide

Dive and water-resistant watches

Keeping water and dust out of a wristwatch was a long-standing challenge. Rolex's screw-down Oyster case (1926) and Omega's Marine (1932) were landmarks; in the early 1950s Blancpain's Fifty Fathoms and Rolex's Submariner defined the professional dive watch with rotating bezels for timing dives, luminous dials and high water resistance. The ISO 6425 standard (1982) later codified what a 'diver's watch' must do.

Dive watches became icons of post-war design and exploration, and their evolution — helium escape valves, ceramic bezels, saturation-diving depth ratings — records the history of underwater work.

What to look for

  • Unidirectional or bidirectional rotating bezel with minute markings.
  • Screw-down crown and case back; depth rating printed on the dial.
  • Luminous hands and markers (radium before c. 1960, tritium c. 1960–1998, then Super-LumiNova).
  • Reference numbers on the case between the lugs or inside the back.

Dating clues

  • Screw-down Oyster cases: from 1926.
  • Professional dive watches: from 1953.
  • Tritium 'T' marks on dials: c. 1960–1998.

General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.

Related records