In 2023, when I chance upon the Tudor Black Bay Ceramic, I was smitten. It was love at first sight. The all black design, ceramic case material expertly carved from a single block of ceramic to house their in-house movement and METAS certification outside of Omega watches, what is there not to love? It’s sleek, screams a watch only a spy agent out on the field will wear. I needed to get it.
But at that time, at SGD7,000, it was a tough sell. I never owned any watches prior to this that costed me more than SGD5,000. I had the Muhle Glasshutte automatic pilot watch and the Tissot Visodate before that. Tissot was my first ever automatic watch. I bought it in 2016. It has been 8 years since then and it still works well.
Now that I have my own home, my finances are stable and that I turned 35 last year, I decided to give myself a little treat and get this watch as a way to celebrate how far I have come. To remind myself that there are moments in life where, when things are going great, you should at least cherish and enjoy those moments. To remind myself that it is ok to splurge once in a while (provided you are already financially secure to some degree) and just take a back seat and pursue life’s little joys. Owning my dream watch is one.
I walked into the Tudor shop about a month ago to check in to see if they have available stock on the Black Bay Ceramic. Unfortunately they did not have one for sale. I wasn’t dissapointed as the sales person who attended to me was kind enough to try out other watches and also took his time to explain about the brand’s heritage, which I gain a lot more appreciation from the brand itself after hearing him out. It made me even more convinced that this is the watch for me. This is the watch that will truly make me happy, just like my first automatic, the Tissot. This is the watch that I will not regret owning for the rest of my life. So while the stock wasn’t available, (apparently according to the sales person, this watch in its all ceramic material is challenging to make and that allocation for this particular model is low due to high demand and low supply) I allowed him to add my name to the wait list.
About a week later, I decided to give authorised resellers a try. I went to Sincere Fine Watches at Suntec City to try my luck. I saw that they had a section for Tudor watches and politely enquired on its availability. The service was impeccable. I was a walk-in customer and the sales person attended to my every needs. I asked if the Black Bay Ceramic was available and he was kind enough to check their inventory on its availabillity. It took a while before he came out of the back room and told me that they actually had one! I was ecstatic but surprised at the same time. I was happy that it is available but wasn’t mentally ready to part SGD7,000 that day to leave the store with a brand new watch. I guess a part of me was waiting to be relieved that they did not have stock available so that I did not have to be SGD7000 poorer.
But the sales person was very patient with me while I took my time to decide while trying the watch on my wrist. According to him, the single watch that was available at the time only arrived a few days ago and that for the entire month, they had only gotten one Black Bay Ceramic allocated to them. Whether that’s true, I do not know or care. I only cared whether I should just take the plunge and enjoy the watch then and there.
And so I did. I left the store feeling perplexed. I was at a disbelief that I just parted SGD7000 to buy my dream watch. I left with a paper bag, in it a tidy looking box with embossed Tudor logo outside and within a black box housing my watch. I have loved it ever since.
One minor gripe though; I have small wrist. Really small. This is a 41mm watch and it already stretching it when it comes to having a good fit on my skinny watch. Any watch above that is going to look to big on my wrist. In fact, this is already looking really big on my wrist. The lugs on both ends are already over-extending beyond my wrist. But I don’t care. It just barely over-extends and on most occasions no one is going to care that this is watch is too big for me. It isnt. Barely, but still just bordering to being too big. I can handle that. The only problem is that because my wrist is too small, I had to swap the original strap to a third-party strap, one that will give me a better bit. To that end, I swapped out to an all leather strap that has similar design principles as the original strap, to maintain the overall desired look when wearing this watch. I really like that original strap. The original is a hybrid leather and rubber strap that is quite comfortable and rugged for all day way. But I have gotten used to the all-leather strap that I swapped out and for me, that feels more comfortable now, especially when its been worned in and seasoned through repeated use.
As a dive watch, the all ceramic case material makes the this watch lighter than typical dive watches. It’s all black, stealthy looking even the bezel and bezel insert, which its disadvantage makes legiblity terrible especially when legibility is important for dive watches. Not that I particularly care, as I don’t go diving in the first place.
Now that his is my this automatic watch I have owned in my life. I happy to say that I have a dress watch (Tissot Visodate), a pilot watch (Muhle Glasshutte) and now a dive watch from Tudor, the Black Bay Ceramic. What is next, in the world of watch collection?
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