GALLERY: TAG Heuer S/EL Quartz Chronograph

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer S/EL Quartz Chronograph

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You may remember I recently missed out on a Watchfinder deal because they took two hours to come back to me about a query I had and in the meantime someone bought the watch from under my nose. Well, needless to say I haven't given up on my quest to find a nice S/EL and the other day I came across this nice white dial piece selling for about £150.

I put in a bid and was quickly winning the watch for about £170, but there was still a long way to go and I knew it was bound to go higher. So I sat back for a few days and then rashly made another bid and was back in the lead with a bid of £220 or so. But again, I knew I wasn't going to win it at that price so I left it alone until today and watched the last few seconds tick away before I placed my bid.

In the end I bid £316.90 with about 8 seconds to go and I was oh-so-briefly-winning, but ultimately the watch sold for £326.90..

Of course it is a little frustrating, but the first rule of eBay is that you should decide on a price and stick to it and I knew I didn't want to go much over £300, but bidding in whole numbers is bad practice and I thought maybe I could win it for £300 plus a bit more, so I gave it a shot.

Sure I could have bid more, but I noticed on one of the pictures that some of the lume on the second hand has fallen out, leaving a skeletonised hand that you can see the dial through. I'm not sure how noticeable that is on the wrist and I wonder if my fellow bidders have even noticed. But given that detail I didn't want to go too mad. It's a pity though because the bracelet looks a decent size and the watch comes with two spare links and bracelet length is always an issue for me with my 7.3/4" wrist.

I actually quite like the white dial, it reminds me of my first (fake) TAG watch that I had years ago... I wish I had some pictures of that as the dial was actually superb and I wasn't sure if it was fake or not for quite a long time, even when I took it to a local watch guy to change the battery he said I needed to take it to a TAG Heuer dealer as he couldn't do it... maybe he was trying to pass the buck, but I genuinely don't think he knew it was fake either. Of course this was nearly twenty years ago, I'm sure I would spot the watch was fake now immediately. Interestingly, the watch it most resembled was the Kirium, which is what I ended up buying when I got my first genuine TAG Heuer.

So, this one was a bust, but I'll keep looking. S/EL prices seem to be all over the place though, with some offered at seriously optimistic prices. There's a grey dial one of these on eBay that is being touted for £995, which is a bit OTT to be honest, but there's also a gorgeously restored one with a black dial for £775 which is very tempting....