FEATURE: You Tube Watch Channels

I thought I would share with you my thoughts about some You Tube channels that you may or may not be aware of, and highlight their TAG friendliness.

THE URBAN GENTRY
Passionate about - Seiko, Brietling Navitimer, Seiko, Vintage Watches and Seiko.
TAG friendliness - 6/10

There's a lot of negative chatter about this fella on the internet, albeit a lot of it seems to be aimed at the guys' acolytes rather than the man himself. That said, Archie Luxury certainly had more than a few choice words to say about him and Federico (one time collaborator) and he seem to have had a falling out too.

It's all rather at odds with his persona of the English gentleman, which is rather a shame, but taken at face value I find his videos entertaining, even when the subject matter is not something that I'm particularly interested in. Certainly very few people can hold my attention for 30mins on a You Tube channel with any regularity.

As far as TAG goes, as far as I know he has reviewed two pieces and given them both solid reviews. Which considering his audience would probably have much preferred a complete slaughtering I guess we have to give him major props for that.

THEO AND HARRIS
Passionate about - Rolex Datejust, Vintage Watches, Rolex in general.
TAG friendliness - 3/10

At first I found Christian incredibly annoying, I mean the guy has a face you could punch repeatedly and never get bored. But over time I've mellowed to him. Despite his massive hipster douche tendencies and his predictability (best this, best that - it's always the Rolex Date Just), the guy does find some unique subjects to talk about (Breitling and the TV show 'The Bachelorette' for instance).

Theo and Harris is a seller of vintage watches, and so a large percentage of the videos they put up are basically advertisments for what they are selling this week. They also do feature videos on particular watches they want to push during which Christian adopts a very 'Marks and Spencers advert' voice - this is very very annoying indeed.

I haven't seen Christian review a TAG, he has commented on the Monza 40th Anniversary and recently he replied to a question about why 'TAG will never be a respected watchmaker' (they have too much baggage apparently because of quartz 'Links'.... eh, right?), but generally speaking he doesn't go out of his way to hate on TAG, largely because he deals in vintage watches. He does like Heuer though, and like so many he talks about Heuer as if it's a different company (it isn't) just because of the name change.

ARCHIE LUXURY
Passionate about - Rolex, Patek Philippe
TAG friendliness - ???

'Archie Luxury' is a character created by Paul Pluta, he can be very, very annoying and at times very funny (in his own peculiar way). He does repeat himself rather too much and that,again, can be very annoying.

Hard to say what Archie thinks about TAG Heuer. On the one hand he made a video called 'What your wristwatch says about you: TAG Heuer' in which he flat out and unrepentantly hated on the brand, but then... he did another video where he compared the Formula One GMT with the Rolex GMT (Batman) where he rather unexpectedly gave the TAG a very positive review. But Archie's opinions seem to change with the wind and depend largely on if there's any money in it for him.

I'm sorely tempted to send him $20 to review my collection, if only to hear him explode... but then again you never know with Archie.

WATCHUWANT
Passionate about - Jaeger le Coulture, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet
TAG friendliness - 6/10

Fronted by the slightly odd and slightly camp (but highly knowledgeable) Tim Mosso, Watchuwant is a video channel for a pre-owned dealer in Philadelphia which largely manages to avoid the failings of Theo & Harris when it comes to pushing it's stock on the viewer. Watchuwant create a huge number of videos and have a separate channel where Tim promotes the watches they have in store.

Watchuwant was recently bought by another company 'Govberg Jewellers' which has seen the arrival of Brian Govberg on the channel. If Tim is slightly odd, Brian is almost certainly non-human. I believe Brian may in fact be a replicant that has escaped from a secret government programme somewhere.

As far as TAG goes, again they don't get much in the way of mentions, but when they do it is even handed and the Carrera Heuer 01 was given a positive mention just the other day.

FEDERICO TALKS WATCHES
Passionate about - Panerai, Seiko
TAG friendliness - ?

Federico has had a colourful You Tube career. He started his own channel, then teamed up with the Urban Gentry for a while, then headed off to Miami to join WatchuWant - just before they closed shop and moved to Philadelphia, then resurrected his own channel again.

Federico's videos tend to be on the short side and can be a little lacking in content, but he's personable and not actively annoying. He's also worked in the watch industry in the past so has some insight there and recently has started his own pre-owned watch store too.

I can't honestly remember ever hearing the words TAG Heuer come out of his mouth, so what he feels about them is anyone's guess.

A BLOG TO WATCH
Passionate about - Pretty much everything!
TAG Friendliness - 8/10

A Blog to Watch is a different kind of channel, rather than face to camera opinion pieces ABTW videos focus on reviews of particular watches. Really the You Tube channel is an offshoot/complimentary outlet for the main blog, and does seem to operate much in the way a physical magazine might. What I mean by that is nothing really gets slagged, and by and large reviews are positive - which leads some to question Ariel's objectivity, particularly when he recentely reviewed a hideous quartz Gucci watch with a woven face and resisted an easy opportunity to rip it to pieces.

ABTW is pretty kind to every watch brand (and in return gets great access) and TAG Heuer is no different. So while on this channel you can expect favourable reviews of TAG products, it's rather meaningless when you now they are basically playing the industry game.

THE WATCHES TV
Passionate about - MB&F, Haute Horlogerie
TAG friendliness - 7/10

Now fronted alone by the charming Marc Andre Deschoux, The Watches TV generally focuses on high-end horology, but perhaps surprisingly for a channel of this nature it gives respect to TAG Heuer on the rare occasions it mentions them. For instance, Marc Andre was quick to mention the role of Guy Simon in designing the new Zenith movement and his previous work on the Monaco V4.

Realistically, The Watches TV is not a channel likely to devote a lot of time to TAG, but they still have an appreciation for the brand and they don't seem to buy into the anti-TAG bullsh*t.

CRM JEWELLERS / WATCH YOUR STYLE
Passionate about - Rolex, Audemars Piquet, Patek Philippe
TAG friendliness - ?

Although this channel is presented on behalf of CRM Jewellers by Eric, the content is not used to promote the company. Instead Eric gives his refreshingly frank opinions on high end watches and how purchasing those pieces will affect your standing in 'the watch game'. Eric places great importance on 'the watch game'.

Again, I've never heard the words TAG Heuer come out of Eric's mouth, but I'm sure he would appreciate the Monaco V4 Tourbillon.

ARMAND THE WATCH GUY
Passionate about - Omega, Rolex, Sinn
TAG friendliness - ?

Armand is a very particular guy, with a very particular style. Unusually for these channels, Armand chooses to stay behind the camera and illustrate his videos with (largely) still images of the watches he is talking about. His videos can be a little dry at times, and this isn't helped by the format, but he seems to know what he's talking about. As far as TAG Heuer goes I don't think I've heard him mention them, which is odd as he seems to concentrate on the price range of watches that TAG generally inhabit.


I must say, it's rather surprising to me that given the number of watch channels I follow that very few actually ever talk about TAG Heuer. It's almost like an elephant in the room in a way, almost as if the hosts are afraid to talk about TAG as if anything remotely complimentary will attract derision and mockery in the comments. Considering the scale of TAG's operation compared to companies like Sinn it seems incredible that the company is so massively under-discussed.

Mind you, it is perhaps partly TAG's fault. A while back TGV from the Urban Gentry appealed to his viewers to get in touch with watch companies on his behalf and ask them to approach him. I contacted TAG Heuer was told that they were very interested in following this up. Bearing in mind The Urban Gentry has 130,000 subscribers, it seemed like a good idea to me.

I've never heard anything else, and since there hasn't been an influx of TAG Heuer reviews on the channel I can only assume they never bothered. Other companies like Fortis and Parmigiani have bothered and both those companies have recently had their watches reviewed. Considering TAG's propensity for self promotion it seems strange that they have overlooked a chance to be on the biggest watch channel on You Tube.

Or maybe they did contact him and he wasn't interested, though I doubt it. Or maybe they contacted him and thought he was an arseh*le? Who really knows?

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ON THE WRIST: Bell and Ross BR-03-92 Diver and Camo Phantom

BR-03-92

Leslie Davis / Milton Keynes 16th Sept 2017

I've been aware of Bell & Ross watches for a while now, and thus far I've been undecided about them. I quite like their aviation instrument aesthetic, but having never tried one on I was unsure about how the round/square design would look on the wrist and whether the watches would be bulky and unwearable.

Well, I have to say, while they are unusual they are also a lot less 'square' on the wrist than a Monaco and thanks to the lovely, wide rubber straps they wear surprisingly nicely. I tried on two models, the BR-03-92 300M Diver pictured above and also the phantom-camouflage version pictured below.

BR-03-92

I'm a bit confused by the nomenclature being that both of these watches are 'BR-03-92', and a quick look at B&R watches on the internet shows that there are plenty of other variants with the same number...

This second one has a little bit of a Panerai look, I think it's the numerals which give the impression of your typical Panerai but it doesn't seem to have the classic lume sandwich or indeed any lume at all (though there might be some on the hands, I couldn't see any but the assistant reckoned there was).

In the window the phantom model was the one that caught my eye the most but on the wrist I preferred the diver. I thought the polished case would put me off, and that the black case would 'disguise' it more, but in actual fact once you get used to the idea of a square watch with a round face and go with it, the polished case actually looks fine.

The rubber straps are really comfortable and very wide, I prefer the ridged strap on the diver if I'm honest, but both are well made and fit well. For some reason the diver seemed to sit slightly better on my wrist, though I don't really understand why that should be. The phantom seemed to want to ride away on the bone, which is something of a problem I do have with other watches as well.

It's quite surprising how different these two models look, one bringing to mind Panerai and the other quite obviously echoing the look of the Rolex Submariner. I still like both but I'm swaying towards the diver, which is actually £2800 compared to £2900 for the phantom. 

The question now is do I sully my collection with a non-TAG product? Currently there's nothing in the TAG collection that is really setting my heart racing, and everything I do like either has a shitty strap or a cyclops, of course there is the potential of the new movement, but it's probably only going to turn up in the so called 'mutant' Carrera which I already own with the Heuer 01 movement.

But is the B&R a good investment? Not that I buy watches as investments, but nor do I want a watch that's going to lose a ton of money, and if it does then I'm more inclined to wait for a second hand model to turn up. Ah the eternal dilemma of the watch collector!

M91210N-0001

Goldsmiths / Milton Keynes 16th Sept 2017

Another watch I tried on was the Tudor North Flag on a steel bracelet. Tudor fans would probably point out that this is probably a better 'investment' than the B&R, particularly with it's in-house movement and display caseback... and I'm sure they would be right. But the case is a bit marmite, and even though it's a good chunk cheaper than the B&R diver it doesn't really excite me in the same way.

I do quite like the dial and the power reserve indicator is a nice feature, but it seems a bit odd not having any crown guards. To be honest, I only really tried it on because I wanted a Tudor catalogue. So no, I don't think this is really one for me...

VIDEO: Aquaracer Calibre 5 Review by Spartans Watch Reviews

FEATURE: Visiting Two Watchfinder Stores in London

Another visit to London, which this time included trips to both the Capital's branches of Watchfinder.

We packed a lot into this day, not all of it Watch related. We did the Emirates Air Line Cable Cars, Tate Modern, Regent Street, Covent Garden... not to mention a cake stop at the newly redecorated 'Richoux' in Piccadilly.

But for the purposes of this blog, I'll keep it focused on the watches...

We didn't go to Harrods or Selfridges this time around, and we didn't go down Bond Street either, so the only really crazy-money watch we saw was a Richard Mille in the Canary Wharf Watchfinder. But let's start at the beginning, which means the Royal Exchange store which we've visited a couple of times before.

As usual there was a plethora of Rolexes in there, which I didn't really pay much attention to. I did have a look at some of the Hublots, but realistically the ones I actually like are out of my price range. So far as TAG Heuer goes they had about twenty pieces I would estimate... one thing that is a little annoying about Watchfinder is that they don't have the prices marked on the watches, which is fine with the TAGs because generally speaking I can take a good guess, but it's something that is a bit annoying on the other brands.

I only tried on one watch, and it seems I've tried it on before. The one that caught my eye was an SLR CAG2111.FT6009 (9 years old, no box, no papers).

CAG2111.FT6009

It was on offer for £1750, which seems pretty reasonable to me. When I saw it in the TAG outlet at Bicester it was on for about £3000, and while this one doesn't have a box of papers it is in excellent condition and actually it does look a lot nicer than the picture suggests. My main issue with it is the crown on the left hand side which seems to stick out far too much and which has quite a spiky edge to it (the crown turns the rehaut, providing a moveable 'remaining time' scale), I could feel it digging into my arm, which was a shame because for that money I might have been tempted.

You can read my previous 'On the Wrist' piece HERE

My wife pointed out an unusual looking watch in the cabinet, and she asked to try it on. It was a men's 4000 series (£575) and it appeared to have some odd marks on the dial. When the watch was taken out and showed to us it became clear that the marks were in fact reflections which moved as the watch was handled. I'm really not sure where the reflections were coming from but they made these odd part circles on the dial. I can only assume it must be some freak of the glass and the lighting in the shop.

999.213

This picture doesn't really show the watch as it is, it looks here like it has a silver dial but in actual fact it's a sort of cream colour, which I thought looked a bit odd, but my wife liked it. Strangely, since my wife's wrists are very small, this looked fine on her. It didn't look any bigger than her ceramic F1 diamond spot really, which makes me think this actually must have been one of the 'midsize' watches, because I tried on a 4000 series last year and it was much more man-sized than this one.

Next stop was the Omega boutique across the way, nothing particularly exciting to report really (not that I'm much of an Omega fan anyway), but I did see one watch I quite liked which was a Seamaster GMT Chronograph with red detailing and white hands. 

It seems you can get a non GMT version of this for £4000 which rather surprised me, it looked like mega-bucks in the cabinet.

Leaving there we made a quick stop off at Lulu Guinness for the wife to dribble on the handbags and point out a wedding anniversary present idea. Then after lunch it was off to the Tate, then down the river to the cable cars and then to Canary Wharf.

We hadn't been to Canary Wharf for a very long time and it was just as confusing and incomprehensible as we remembered. We tried to walk into the HSBC building by accident and a kindly security guard pointed us back in the right direction. After some more aimless wandering (and to be fair the maps in there are rubbish!) we asked another security guard and he showed us the way.

Unfortunately, after all this effort, the Canary Wharf branch is obviously the poor relation to the Royal Exchange. There were a few interesting things in there like the Cartier Dive Watch, the Richard Mille in the window, a bright yellow AP Royal Oak Offshore which I liked and a few Hublots, but it was all a bit of an anticlimax. On the TAG front they had a couple of Calibre S Aquaracers and some other rather everyday models, but nothing terribly exciting.

So we amused ourselves looking at some of the most hideous women's Rolexes, with bright pink faces, diamonds and massively oversized cyclops... lovely!

I think it's safe to say we won't be returning. It's such a pain to get there and it's simply not worth it, after all that we didn't even try anything on and instead headed off to Piccadilly for cake.

SPOTLIGHT ON: 2000 Series Chronograph Quartz

CN1111.BA0337

I spotted this watch pre-owned in a jewellers window in Lincoln yesterday. They were asking £1200 for it, though it didn't state if they had the box or papers for it. I thought that was a bit steep, but I also felt I was pretty sure I hadn't seen this model before. Sure enough, I checked my gallery blog this morning and this piece wasn't listed.

I'm guessing this watch must be something like fifteen years old and I'm pretty sure £1200 is more than or very close to the original price (but I could be wrong), a quick search on Chrono 24 threw one up for £910, which sounds better although obviously there's always a premium to pay going through a high street jeweller who presumably will have checked the watches' authenticity (?). Still if after all my searching I've never come across this one before then it's obviously not that common, and for some this silver dialed chronograph could be a dream watch.

It's quite a chunky looker, and I was half tempted to try it on... but the polished element of the bezel did have some scratches on it (I suppose it may be that the jeweller is selling it on behalf of the owner and so they don't want to spend money polishing it out) and to be honest it looked rather too much like my Aquagraph for me to seriously consider it.

But of course it's always nice to see a TAG you haven't seen before, and I was rather impressed with this one's looks. Not sure about the round Chrono pushers, perhaps because I'm used to the square rubber pushers on my Aquagraph, but I'm sure I'd get used to them... and really the main reason I didn't try it on is because I think I just might have been tempted!

FEATURE: Reappraising the Formula One Kirium

I bought my Formula One Kirium way back in 2004, and for a long time it was my one and only TAG. I never wore it as a daily watch, I had a series of cheap everyday watches and kept the F1 Kirium for going out, which explains why mine is still in near mint condition. The photo above isn't my watch, but this photo really shows the watch off as it really looks on the wrist, and gives a much better impression than the multitude of head on pro-shots available.

The Kirium remained my only TAG until 2013 (I think) when I bought my Aquagraph. Inevitably I suppose, the new model became the 'favourite' and as I added the rest of my collection so the Kirium slipped further down the queue whenever there was wrist time available. Not that I would ever sell it, because it was my first TAG and I still love it, but it definitely took a backseat.

For some reason, in my mind I always think of it as being smaller than it actually is, perhaps because the shape of the case is very ergonomic and it flows very nicely from bezel to bracelet, unlike for example the new 'Heuer 01' Carreras which are very much separate entities.

The watch has a unidirectional bezel, since this is actually a diveable watch (rated 200M). The action on mine is very crisp, although that may be because I never turn it! Indeed I didn't actually realise it turned until relatively recently... but that's maybe partly because it sits very snugly to the case and because of it's smooth design it never catches on anything and moves accidentally.

It's one of those watches that surprises you. Every time I get it out to wear it I realise it's really not so small (40mm) and I remember what a looker it really is. The dial is presumably 'black' but its actually an LCD display and that mixed with AR coating gives it a very dark purple tone which looks very, very cool indeed.

The bracelet is the best bracelet I've ever worn, it's so comfortable and smooth. The clasp is fine on mine but it isn't a deployment clasp and I can imagine regular use would eventually wear it out. It's still a nicely machined clasp and I would take it over some of the clasp TAG are using even today on some of the Formula One models.

For the life of me I can't understand why it's called the Formula One Kirium. You wouldn't name a watch the 'Monaco Carrera' or the 'Monza Aquaracer' would you? It makes no sense, it's a Kirium first and foremost, the only real connection to Formula One is the text on the back heralding TAG's official timing of F1 and of course the stop watch capability.

To be honest, I never use the digital functions, I just think the watch looks so cool with the plain dial that I don't even want to see them. You can just have the date at '3' which is okay, but personally I still keep the dial completely clear at all times. For the record the digital functions are as follows

Date only, Digital time, Digital Day/Week/Time, Alarm, Chronograph, and... there's another function that I think is either a second time zone of a lap timer. Not sure, well I did say I never use it!

There is also a back light, which is operated by pressing the crown in and this works perfectly giving clear time readings and stopping the seconds hand for the duration, when the light goes off the second hand jumps forward to resume the correct time. The hands do have a small amount of lume applied and there is a lume pip at the 12 position, and this is still going strong 13 years down the road.

As you turn the crown the display scrolls through the various options and when you get to the solo 'date' function pressing the upper pusher clears the digital display. Turning the crown brings the digital display back into play whenever required. I must say, sometimes I look at my watch and the crown has turned and initiated the digital display but it's quite unusual for that to happen.

The dial isn't completely bare, as there is a decent sized TAG Heuer logo in white and more subtley there is a small 12 and 6 marking on the rehaut along with a clear white minute track. The hands are beautifully polished and faceted steel which catch the light and just look quality.

This watch was the pinnacle of the Kirium range, and cost a pretty penny even thirteen years ago. I bought mine from the grey market for about £1350 but the list was about another £3-400 IIRC. Even now that seems a lot of money for a quartz watch, but I have no regrets. Unlike the basic Kiriums that you see ten a penny on eBay, I think this has aged very well and still looks total class to me.

Of course, being TAG there were other options available and I have considered purchasing a rubber strap for my Kirium (of course!) but being that the bracelet is so good and I consider this my 'dress' watch, I don't really see the need and to be honest I think the bracelet looks much nicer anyway. As for this jewelled bezel version, well... I'm not sure teaming the jewels with the rubber band was a great idea to be honest, true they go well with the black but still.

One thing this picture does show off is the alternative polished finish that was featured on some Kiriums. Personally I think the brushed finish on the F1 Kirium looks so much nicer, the polished might have looked nice when new but so often you see the polished ones on eBay now and they just look horrible.

One interesting and very useful function (for people like me who don't want to wear the watch everyday) is a sleep mode. With the dial digital free you pull the crown out and then press the top pusher. The text 'Batt' comes up and you have to hold the pusher for a couple of seconds until it goes off. This puts the watch into low power mode and when you come to wear the watch again all you have to do is push the crown in and the watch powers up and resets the hands to the correct time, much like a Calibre S does when you switch between chrono and time functions. To be honest, that is very cool and worth the price of a second hand model any day. Thanks to this function I think I'm still on my third battery in 13 years - not bad!

You can actually pick these up on Watchfinder for less than £700, which to me is the bargain of the century. This is a magnificent watch and I can't help but think it's somewhat dragged down by the lesser watches in the same range. I guess it's a bit like having the best house on a rough street... a bit of a pain if you're trying to sell, but a bargain in the offing if you're looking to buy.

I say get yourself an F1 Kirium and enjoy it, hands down the best bang for buck TAG you're ever going to lay your hands on.

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