We recently took a deep dive into the Tudor Ranger, and today, I’m going to go boldly forth and explore what I consider to be the Ranger’s spiritual sibling, albeit a discontinued one: the Tudor North Flag. Both watches have similar roots in 20th-century polar exploration, but while the Ranger looks to the past for its design codes, the North Flag, at its time, had its sights set on the future. While it marked a huge leap forward in Rolex-owned Tudor’s contemporary legacy and ultimately, further set the stage for the brand to finally come out of the looming shadow of the Crown, the North Flag has already become a relic of Tudor’s not-so-distant past. Down below, I’ll be taking you through a brief history lesson on the watch at hand, detailing the key design codes and features, and exploring why some vocal enthusiasts out there are begging for the North Flag to make a comeback. 

Tudor North Flag History

For most of the 20th century, Tudor leaned on its intrinsic connection to Rolex to boost its credibility, but by the 1990s, the brand’s reputation as Rolex’s “little brother” or “Rolex Lite” fell out of favor with the general watch-wearing public. Affordability as a guiding virtue was not, for lack of a better word, sexy anymore. Tudor had not differentiated itself enough from its more luxurious relative to stand effectively on its own, globally. The brand fled the U.S. market entirely in the late '90s, and it would spend over a decade working behind the scenes to set itself up for what would bear out to be a triumphant return in 2013, finally bolstered enough to stand alone. 

The pathway to Tudor’s modern success was found in the growing interest in heritage reissues and vintage-inspired tool watches, which remain the brand’s bread and butter. But even with the runaway success of the Black Bay and Pelagos, the brand had yet to make its own movement. 

In 2015, a short two years after its relaunch, Tudor would give the people what they were begging for, choosing the North Flag as its vehicle to debut its first-ever in-house movement – the COSC-Certified MT5621. To lean into the excitement of its new movement, Tudor also equipped the North Flag with an exhibition caseback to put the MT5621 on full display. While enthusiasts were excited by the novelty of Tudor’s first in-house movement, aesthetically, the North Flag was something of a record-scratch moment.

Image by Sotheby's

Though the brand presented its new design as a tribute to its connection with its involvement in the 1952 British North Greenland Expedition, for which Tudor supplied the Oyster Prince watches to the team, and its design language had roots in the often-overlooked Ranger II from the 70s, the North Flag was a far cry from the vintage field and diving watches that the brand had primed its newfound audience to expect. Many recognized the significance of the North Flag at its time, but its appearance was divisive. Defined by its integrated-bracelet style, with a case similar to those found on the 1970s-era Oysterquartz from Rolex, this was a piece that didn’t immediately capture the vintage-inspired ethos that many were looking for. Polarizing from the jump, the life of the North Flag was pretty short. Tudor produced the watch only for six years, relegating the North Flag to its archive officially in 2021, after which it would be succeeded by the Tudor Ranger one year later. 

Tudor North Flag Case and Wear

Even compared to the brand’s catalog today, the North Flag remains somewhat of an aesthetic anomaly for Tudor. The angular, integrated case style of this watch, as I mentioned before, echoes the design codes seen with Rolex’s Oysterquartz. For a more timely comparison, the North Flag case also has much in common with the Crown’s latest collection, the Land-Dweller, which is polarizing in its own right. The closest comparison to the case of the North Flag in the brand’s current lineup would be the Tudor Royal, which, along with the 1926, I would dub as the brand’s most overlooked collections. 

In addition to its sharply geometric case, the North Flag also, quite unexpectedly, features a ceramic rim on its bezel. The North Flag case measures 40mm in diameter with a 13.4mm profile and a lug-to-lug of 50mm, making it relatively versatile. There aren’t really any lugs to speak of, giving the integrated-bracelet-ness of it all, and it was offered either with a steel bracelet with links that flowed right into the case, or a strap with bright yellow stitches that match details on the dial. 

Tudor North Flag Dial

This is the element of the North Flag that, from what I can tell, is what initially stirred up such a controversy. So let's address the elephant in the room – the power reserve at 9 o’clock. Using a combination of bright yellow graphic bars and a tiny white hand, this is the detail on the watch that made people love, hate, or feel lukewarm about this watch overall. Personally, I think it's kind of funky, but I understand the argument for people preferring to have a more classic, oversized numeral in its place. I feel similarly about the date window at three o’clock. I think it's very telling that you would have to do a whole lot of digging to find a watch in Tudor’s current offerings with a power reserve right on the dial, only to come up empty-handed. I did a lot of scrolling on the Tudor website in preparing for this article, and I did not come up with one. 

The rest of the dial is pretty utilitarian, with some quirky pops of bright yellow to keep things interesting. Against the black, matte backdrop, you’ll find luminous, rectangular markers for the hours, with the exception of the oversized numerals at 12 and 6 o’clock. The time is read with the combination of a broad arrow for the hour, a sword-shaped hand for the minutes, and a poppy yellow seconds hand with a trapezoidal pip, all of which are filled with plenty of Super-LumiNova. A recessed minutes track encircles the dial, once again tying in that vibrant yellow at each hour. 

Tudor North Flag Movement

Now, we’re onto the key selling point of the North Flag for its time. As I mentioned previously (just in case you weren't paying attention), the North Flag was representative of a historic first for the brand, and set the scene for just about all the watches that were to follow it, powered by the in-house MT5621 caliber for the first time. And, for its first movement, Tudor didn’t cut any corners and got the stamp of approval from COSC right from the start, making the unconventional North Flag officially chronometer-certified, proven to hold its own against the rigorous testing required of such a title. In addition to the novelty of being powered by the brand’s first in-house caliber, the North Flag was also the first from the brand to feature a sapphire crystal caseback, stepping away from the rugged utilitarianism of the closed casebacks that Tudor had produced up until that time. Additionally, the MT5621 Caliber featured a silicon balance spring and had an impressive power reserve of 70 hours. 

Final Thoughts

In spite of the mechanical innovation that it presented to the world for the first time, the unconventional design codes and general quirkiness of Tudor’s North Flag prevented it from steady, mainstream success, leading to its subsequent demise. But its difference in comparison with the brand’s staples, like the Black Bay, is just what makes it so endearing. It’s a Tudor that has a lot more in common with, say, a Royal Oak or a PRX than it does with most other Tudors. I see the rallying fervor from some to bring it back again, but I wonder if that’s more of a sudden desire for the recently discontinued, rather than a real demand. There are plenty of North Flag models circulating on the secondary market at the moment, pretty close to the price that the watch initially debuted with. I could see a world in which Tudor might bring back a rendition of its North Flag at some point, but I think it would be in the safer form of a limited edition, rather than entering the line back into production, if that. You might not find the North Flag here but you can learn more about the brand at tudorwatch.com.