Free tool
Check a Tudor serial number against publicly documented production eras. Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is sent anywhere.
This checks the serial's format against publicly documented production eras only. It does not check any watch, and nothing you type here is sent anywhere. Check if this serial appears in the Watch Safe registry, or has been reported stolen.
Tudor is easy to date wrong precisely because it looks like it should follow Rolex's chart: the two brands shared cases for decades, and the serial sits in the same spot on the watch. But Tudor ran its own, separate numbering sequence the whole time, so applying a Rolex chart to a Tudor serial produces a confidently wrong answer. Tudor's alphanumeric era, roughly 1990 through the early 2000s, is well enough documented across independent sources to date with reasonable confidence. Everything before that is a genuine gap in what the public record can support, and Watch Safe would rather say so than guess.
Tudor ran its own serial sequence, separate from Rolex's, even on watches sharing a Rolex-made case — an identical number on a Rolex and a Tudor dates to a different year. Watch Safe has deliberately left pre-1990 Tudor dating out of this tool: published collector references disagree with each other about whether early Tudor cases shared Rolex's numeric sequence or ran independently, and disagree about where the boundaries between years fall, so nothing Watch Safe could publish for that era would meet the accuracy bar the rest of this tool holds itself to. A purely numeric Tudor serial with no letter prefix is almost certainly from before 1990 and falls in that gap.
| Serial pattern | Approximate year | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| B330000–B359999 | 1990 | Tudor introduced an alphanumeric serial beginning with the letter B around 1990, replacing the earlier numeric-only system. Anchor point cross-referenced across multiple independent collector/dealer references that agree on this starting point. |
| B360000–B389999 | 1991 | Same B-prefix anchor set as the 1990 row above. |
| B390000–B989999 | 1992–1997 | Bounded between the confirmed 1992 anchor (B390000) and the confirmed 1998 anchor (B990000). Watch Safe found no reliable public sourcing for the exact year boundaries inside this span, so a serial here is dated only to somewhere in 1992–1997, not a specific year. |
| B990000–B999999 | 1998 | Same B-prefix anchor set as the 1990 row above. |
| H130000–H169999 | 1999 | Tudor moved to an H prefix around 1999. Anchor point cross-referenced across multiple independent collector/dealer references. |
| H170000–H239999 | 2000 | Same H-prefix anchor set as the 1999 row above. |
| H240000 and above | 2001 | Same H-prefix anchor set as the 1999 row above. The upper bound is soft: Tudor moved to randomized serials around 2002, so a high H-prefix number could sit right at that transition. |
| Everything after the documented eras above | Not datable | From around 2002 Tudor moved to randomized serial numbers with no publicly documented year mapping, confirmed across multiple dealer/collector references. A modern Tudor serial cannot be dated from the number alone. |
Tudor used Rolex-made cases into the 1960s, so on older watches the serial sits where Rolex puts it: between the lugs at the 6 o'clock position, under the bracelet. Modern Tudor serials are on the case back or, on recent models, the rehaut.
On vintage Tudor watches, which used Rolex-made cases, it is between the lugs at the 6 o'clock position, in the same spot Rolex uses. Modern Tudor serials are on the case back or, on recent models, the rehaut.
No — Tudor ran its own serial sequence, so a Rolex dating chart does not apply. Watch Safe can date the B-prefix and H-prefix eras (roughly 1990–2001) with reasonable confidence. Pre-1990 numeric-only serials and post-2002 serials are both outside what this tool, or any public source Watch Safe could verify, can currently date.
That points to a pre-1990 watch. Watch Safe has deliberately left that era's dating out of this tool because published references disagree with each other about how Tudor's early numbering actually worked.
Watch Safe does not authenticate watches itself. An independent expert authenticator in Watch Safe's network physically inspects the watch and certifies it; Watch Safe records that inspection and publishes the permanent registry entry.
Browsing Tudor models and references? See the Tudor reference guide.