{"id":484726,"date":"2026-10-04T10:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T10:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/484726\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T10:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T10:26:12","slug":"tudor-watch-feels-at-home-in-san-diego-as-we-visit-the-new-navy-seal-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/484726\/","title":{"rendered":"Tudor Watch Feels At Home In San Diego As We Visit The New Navy SEAL Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

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If there were a city in the United States that could best be compared to the Swiss watch brand Tudor<\/a>, it would probably be San Diego, California. If sister brand Rolex<\/a> feels most at home in Manhattan, then Tudor is most certainly the monarch of the West Coast\u2019s dynamic yet chill beachside metropolis. San Diego only seems small compared to its neighbor to the north, Los Angeles. By Geneva standards, San Diego is a major commercial center, and it blends a rare mixture of military seriousness and surfer cool. Much of the same could be said about Tudor. Tudor has a playful vibe to it, but within the confines of being part of the long-standing conservative Swiss watch industry establishment. Tudor was also a timepiece officially issued to various members of the American (among other nations) armed forces at various times in history, including elite members of the Navy (whose special forces operate and are in large part trained in San Diego).<\/p>\n

So much of the personality of Tudor feels at home in its spiritual sister city of San Diego. At least the military guys all seem to admire the storied watchmaker whose Submariner models (among others) were worn on the wrist of many celebrated combat legends. Tudor has made it a strategic mission to educate consumers and watch media alike in regard to its authentic connection to the military and various special forces operations. What I think is important to explain in detail is that for about three decades, Tudor watches were purchased by the U.S. government and issued to certain high-importance personnel and operatives. These are some of the most collectable watches around (those and some of the Rolex equivalents), and many of them are uncannily similar to watches produced by both Rolex and Tudor today.<\/p>\n



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Tudor last took aBlogtoWatch to Florida to visit <\/a>the Sea-Lab museum, <\/a>another hot spot of U.S. Navy operations in Panama City. San Diego is the ultimate Navy mecca as well as special as a metropolitan area because the Navy, Marines, and Air Force all run operations, training, and bases in the area. There are a lot of Tudor owners and watch lovers in this larger geographic region. It really extends from the border with Mexico all the way up to just North of Los Angeles. This highly developed, wide stretch of Southern California might be the most important single region when it comes to watch sales in the United States.<\/p>\n

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While a Navy SEAL museum is not per se new, the current form and location of it is. There was a previous smaller Navy SEAL museum in Florida, but my understanding is that it no longer exists. The new Navy SEAL Museum is based in San Diego, California. It is an impressive, modern facility focused on celebrating the core values of the NAVY SEALs while offering a place for the general public to get a sneak peek into a typically covert world. The Navy SEAL Museum is run by Executive Director Brian \u201cBeef\u201d Dreschler, who is a retired high-ranking Navy SEAL command leader and former SEAL. As nice as it is now, the museum footprint is set to expand in the coming years, and the team likens the phase of their operations to \u201clike a startup.\u201d While interest in a topic like the famously effective Navy SEALs elite fighting commandos is high, much of the juicy stuff is classified or off-limits to the public. The museum focuses on the history of the Navy SEALs while teasing some of their special gear and achievements. The weapons on display were very cool, I must say. Not far away on Coronado Island in San Diego, the active Navy SEALs train and plan missions from their headquarters. What is important to repeat is that the Navy SEAL Museum is run by former members and not people from the museum or exhibition industry. Retired Navy SEALs are the only people who can probably be trusted with the task of glorifying the achievements while respecting the needs of a world in active conflict. That makes the museum authentic, to say the least. It is also new, with the current space having been open for less than two years at the time of writing.<\/p>\n

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Navy SEAL Philip \u201cMoki\u201d Martin wearing Tudor watch in Vietnam in 1968<\/p>\n

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Tudor is an official sponsor and partner of the Navy SEAL Museum San Diego. Though you won\u2019t see much or any Tudor branding. Currently, there is an authentic vintage Tudor Submariner watch on one of the museum mannequins to help demonstrate the kit of historic Navy SEAL team members. When I visited, Tudor was kind enough to share a few other vintage Tudor watches that were originally worn by Navy SEAL members. When President Kennedy started the Navy SEAL program in 1962, the Navy ordered 135 watches directly from Tudor, who shipped them from Geneva to New York City (to be assembled by Rolex in America, given restrictions on using foreign goods by the government), and then to the Navy. We also got to meet some retired Navy SEALs who were the original wearers of some of the 1960s and 1970s Tudor Submariner models that we got to admire. Even though I am more interested in modern timepieces, I have to admit there is a very real hip timelessness to true tool watches like those produced by Tudor and Rolex. While they watches are not considered large by today\u2019s standards at 40mm wide, at the time, they were considered \u201cbig timepieces.\u201d I can very much see the appeal of hunting after rare military Tudor watches, even when modern analogs exist that are often vastly more practical for most wrists. At least with Tudor, part of the charm is that many of its modern watches resemble its vintage creations. So, being interested in the brand\u2019s history can often be satisfied by something in the contemporary product catalog.<\/p>\n



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The Navy SEALs have been the subject of so many watches, but still no official modern Tudor Navy SEAL watch that I know of (perhaps in the future). Across multiple watch brands, some of the new SEAL-themed products are based on timepieces actually worn today or historically by the Navy SEALs. Others are high-end imaginations of what a soldier on an unlimited budget might buy. Some of the coolest modern luxury sport watches are imagined to be worn by the Navy SEALs or commandos like them. The \u201cSea, Land, and Air\u201d theme of their operational theater continues to inspire the shape and style of countless military watches that honor their tradition and larger consumer appeal. In other words, if there is a real-life professional that many consumers admire or aspire to be like, it is an American Navy SEAL. It is very interesting that the elite soldiers who created this organization and led it for the first few decades chose and wore Tudor. It wasn\u2019t per se for style, but rather that Tudor made a watch that could survive the challenges and demands of an underwater demolition and combat crewman.<\/p>\n

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That inherent sex appeal is not lost on Tudor, which, in addition to having a historic relationship with the Navy SEALs, continues today as a supportive and often silent patron. I believe Tudor also continues to offer many \u201csquad\u201d watches to military units that want their emblem on a timepiece. That is just one way that Tudor (unlike Rolex, for the most part) maintains important formal relationships with the important fighting professionals of our era. The love goes both ways. Soldiers of all types today covet (and are familiar with) Tudor models in large numbers. According to the men who received government-issue Tudors, the watches are extremely tough and reliable. That was pretty good praise. I recommend anyone who likes military history to visit the Navy SEAL Museum in San Diego<\/a>. You can also learn more from the Tudor Watch website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If there were a city in the United States that could best be compared to the Swiss watch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75],"class_list":["post-484726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}