NEWS: This beaten-up Tudor Oyster Submariner 7923 is about to sell for more than $100,000 on eBay

Felix Scholz

Buying vintage watches on Ebay can be a risky business. There’s a lot of sharks and gussied up pieces in those murky waters. But, every so often those incredible barn finds do happen. Like this reference 7923 Tudor Submariner, which at the time of writing has a high bid of $99,999 USD, with 2d 16h to go. Yes you read that number right, a buck below one hundred grand. And to think that the seller originally listed it with a starting price of $3500, and the following sparse (almost poetic) description;

The model number is 7923.
This is one of the few manual winding  watches.
There is no band.
The watch does NOT function.
There is a ding in the crystal @ 5:27 with scratches front and back.

It seems that on March 20th the San Francisco seller realised what they had on their hands, possibly due to the presumed deluge of interest in Tudor’s first ever dive watch, as they updated the description to let us know the watch was now in a safe deposit box and to provide geiger counter readings and other information expected of a watch of this rarity. Of course we can’t know for sure if this watch is the real deal, but the bidding seems to indicate that people are treating it as a very serious watch indeed.

Not so long ago it would have been unbelieveable to imagine a Tudor selling for six figures, but since the ascendency of the Black Bay anything seems possible. In December last year Christies sold a 7923 for $93,750 USD, and of course the 2015 Tudor Only Watch hammered in at 375,000 CHF.

We’ll update you on the outcome of this auction but there’s not doubt that Tudor is now playing in the vintage big league.