BUYING EXPERIENCE: Cartier Pasha Quartz Watch

 

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While my wife Rose does have a pretty healthy selection of TAG Heuer watches that she's collected over the years, she hasn't been quite as loyal to the brand as I have. Over the years she's picked up a skeleton-dial Oris Atelier and an Omega Constellation quartz (both of which are right up there amongst her favourites) and now she's expanded this betrayal to include her very first Cartier. 

For a while she had been looking at a number of blue mother of pearl dial 'Links' on Watchfinder but couldn't quite decide if they would ever look as good in real life as they did in the pictures (my guess is not). Prior to that she had been looking at some nice looking Dior watches on the same site, but gave up on them when she realised how small they were...  and then she started looking at Cartier. I must admit I was quite surprised at this because she's never been one for Art Deco and she hates Roman numerals on watch dials (which most Cartiers of course have). 

But then she seemed to settle on the Pasha range, which admittedly don't have the Roman numerals but are still quite Deco-ish. This went on for some time and originally she favoured the pink dial models but eventually she decided that these were too similar to the pale pink Alter Ego she already has. So then she switched to the more classic silver dial models with the blue cabachon (much better in my opinion) but she still wasn't 100% sure.

As it happened we were scheduled to visit London at the end of March so we asked Watchfinder if we could visit and see the watch in their Avery Row store (just off Bond Street). The watch was being sold on behalf of a third party, which is something that Watchfinder have started doing recently it seems; it still gets a two year warranty and still gets checked out by their technicians before they supply it (watches which fail their scrutiny are apparently returned to the sellers and the sale is cancelled) but in this instance at least it means they can't be as flexible on price as they usually are.

The Avery Row store is very small, acting more as a pick-up / drop-off point than an actual showroom, but there were a few nice watches on show including a trio of Royal Oak Off Shores, a couple of Patek Phillipe Nautilli and a selection of Vacheron Constantin Overseas to look at while we waited for the watch to come out.

We were served by the same lady who showed me the (rather disappointing) Grand Carrera Caliper last year, I forget her name, but she was very nice, friendly and helpful and the watch looked even better in reality than in the photos, so my wife was immediately sold on it. At least that was the end of me worrying about what to buy her for her birthday! 

Before we left we had the bracelet sized so that it was all ready to go, there was a spare link left over and apparently it's quite easy as Cartier use screws rather than pins, so I should be able to do it in future if needs be. Fortunately there was a half link included in the bracelet, which was something I was keen to see as the watch has a butterfly clasp and no other way to micro-adjust it.

You may have noticed the unusual crown on these watches with the chain detail. The crown actually comes off completely, hence the chain to keep it from being lost. Underneath there is a very small crown which is used solely to set the time (there is no date wheel thankfully) and so it only needs to be accessed when the battery is changed or when switching from BST to GMT.

We didn't really want to carry the watch all round London with us, especially as we were heading for the ABBA Voyage show in the evening, so we arranged for Watchfinder to ship it to us instead. An excellent decision as it came the next morning (thankfully not too early as we got to bed pretty late), complete with all its various boxes, books and even a DVD! 

My wife's birthday isn't for another couple of weeks so she hasn't taken delivery of it as yet. But I'm sure she will be very happy when she does. It really is a very classy looking piece and much like when I bought my Grand Carrera chronograph it's making her rethink the need for multiple 'plastic' Formula 1s. After all, how many watches can you actually wear?