Saturday, 12 November 2016

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Aquaracer Black Phantom 'One Piece' Limited Edition


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'One Piece' is a Japanese Manga series written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda and has been serialised in a weekly magazine since 1997. The main character is called Monkey D Luffy, a young man whose body gained the properties of rubber after unintentionally eating a Devil Fruit. With his diverse group of pirates (named 'The Straw Hat Pirates') he explores the Grand Line in search of the ultimate treasure known as 'One Piece' in order to become the next King of the Pirates. So now you know...

Unsurprisingly, this paticular Aquaracer is only available in Japan, in a limited number of 500 pieces. Although Joma Shop have on sale if you really fancy it. It's currently showing on offer at £1950, having been £2100 with a list price of £3000. I don't know how accurate that is, and there also seems to be some disagreement about the size. TAG Heuer list the size as 41mm, as do Joma Shop, but Hodinky are listing it as being 43mm. I'm somewhat inclined to believe TAG themselves (obviously) especially as I would imagine a watch specifically for the Japanese market would tend to the smaller size.

As for the watch itself, it's an unusual beast and though I actually quite like the bezel with the compass markings on it, I wonder if it serves any practical purpose? Probably not, but then I suppose it doesn't really matter, it's not like I've ever used a tachymetre... 

Leaving aside the red 'One Piece' characters on the dial (which mean nothing whatsoever to me) the mixture of blue markers and general phantom appearance works quite nicely. Maybe they could make a non 'One Piece' version with a red second hand instead... 

As you can see in the link below, there is mention of a limited steel bracelet, but I think this must be an error as I can't find any mention of this anywhere.

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