Reviews
The Tudor ‘Monte Carlo’
It was this series that became known by collectors as the original “Monte Carlo” watches, as the dials had a resemblance to the roulette tables of the famous casinos of Monte Carlo. Very often the Homeplate watches are also referred to as Monte Carlos, but this isn’t technically correct and the nickname should only really be used when referring to the 7100 series of watches.
Tudor introduced a third bezel type for the Monte Carlos. Having experimented with the 12-hour bi-directional rotating bezel on the prototype 7033 Homeplate, it was now in production.
- 7149 with acrylic tachymeter bezel
- 7159 with steel tachymeter bezel
- 7169 with 12-hour graduated bezel.
The watches all featured the long triangular orange stopwatch second hand and had a two-register dial layout and date window at six o’clock. The color scheme of gray/orange/black that Tudor first used on the Homeplates was supplemented with a gray/orange/blue color combination. The introduction of the blue element on certain watches was complemented by a blue acrylic tachymeter bezel instead of black on the 7149s and a blue 12-hour bezel insert on the 7169s. The Homeplates were equipped with the Valjoux caliber 7734 but the Monte Carlos were powered by the Valjoux caliber 234.