383.513/1
Regular readers will know that I've been after a 'classic' Formula 1 watch for quite a while, but until recently it was always something that I wanted to get 'at some point'. I wasn't too fussy about the colour of the watch, but I knew I wanted one with the plastic strap rather than the bracelet (mainly because of my previous experience with a 35mm 2000 Series, which dug into my wrist no matter how many links I added) and preferably with the resin style case rather than the later steel case.
I wasn't sure how wearable the watch was going to be for me, 35mm is pretty small by modern standards and my wrist is 7.3/4" around, so I didn't want to spend a fortune on something that I might rarely or possibly even never wear. I mainly wanted one because it was the first proper watch TAG produced after they took over the Heuer company, so it was a 'collectors piece' first and a watch second.
As such I really didn't want one that looked it had been dragged down the pavement and unfortunately while there are plenty to choose from on eBay, a lot of them have hard lives. It doesn't help of course that the bezel is resin and the glass is not sapphire, so they are easily damaged if not looked after properly. Also, a lot don't have the proper straps, as they are quite expensive to replace (considering what they're made of) and easy to snap since they are so thin.
Exactly the sort of thing I didn't want to end up with!
So colour wasn't a major issue, but condition was... trouble is, the reconditioned ones are generally offered in the £300+ range and I didn't really want to pay that much, but the not so good ones fall anywhere between £70 and £250... so finding something good but at a price I wanted to pay wasn't going to be easy. That said, a search of eBay's 'Sold' listings showed that there were bargains to be had and I found a very nice red case/black bezel/black strap example which sold for just £99 which gave me hope.
I tried to secure a couple of blue bezel/cream case F1s but got beaten out on both. I really would have preferred the first one as the condition was excellent, but I didn't bid enough and the watch went for £173. This acted as a bit of a wake-up call as it became clear that while maybe there are bargains out there it would take an awful lot of luck to get hold of one that for some reason no-one else had noticed and bid on. The second one was a little bit grubby and had a few marks on the glass, but looked like it might clean up with some elbow grease on the case and some Polywatch on the glass.
Because of the condition relative to the first one I bid quite a bit lower, but once again I was beaten out. Then I found a listing for the watch I eventually bought which was described as 'New glass/bezel/strap/battery' and was starting at £68. This seemed promising! What I didn't initially notice was that the watch also had a reserve, and then I read the description which pretty much laid out that the buyer had bought the watch off eBay and realised when he got it that it was too small for him (I eventually found out the guy is 6ft 4").
I could totally sympathise with this as my first eBay TAG was a dreadful shock and disappointment (the 35mm 2000 Series I mentioned earlier), but it led to me searching the finished listings and finding the original listing where he had bought it, complete with much better photographs. Result!
The reserve provided a complication though, especially as I wasn't going to be in a position to bid at the last second. And judging by the £190 sale price (14 bids) it was unlikely I was going to get the watch for much less than the 'Buy It Now' price of £200. I surmised that the seller was most likely going to pitch the reserve between £150 and £170, and while I could make a bid, it would remove the 'Buy It Now' option and open the auction up to offers from other bidders. I thought about it for a little while and reasoned that with a new bezel, glass, strap and battery £200 was actually a very fair price, considering most really sharp ones were well above that - plus the market value had already been established by the previous sale at £190, so was it worth it to quibble over £30-50?
I decided it wasn't, and purchased the watch using the Buy It Now feature. Within a couple of hours I had an email from the seller telling me he had posted the watch using Special Delivery and that it would be with me the next morning. Sure enough the next morning I got a parcel containing the watch in a small cardboard box and a slightly crappy looking watch cushion. No box and papers, but since I would only have put them on top of the (already creaking) wardrobe I really wasn't too bothered about that.
When I got the watch I was delighted with the condition, the only tiny niggle being that there is a small white dot on the underside of the glass which is a little bit of a shame, but it's not massively noticeable - oh, that and the strap seems to have been fitted the wrong way around, It's still usable, but it's a bit fiddly to put on. I will most likely have this switched around at some point as it is a bit annoying.
On the wrist it's actually nowhere near as bad as I feared it might be, yes there's no getting away from the fact that this is a small watch, but it's only 2mm smaller than my Kiriums and my 2000 Exclusive, albeit a lot thinner than either as well.
Oddly, it rather reminds me of the 'Gull' watch I used to own, which had a yellow dial and a silver bezel matched to a red and yellow velcro strap. I reckon it was about the same size as well, and it never bothered me then... that was before I become a watch snob of course. :)
I did have a bit of a conversation with the seller and it turned out he'd secured himself a pre-owned Omega more suited to his size. Inevitably I had to enquire about the reserve, just so I knew... and it turned out I was pretty much bang on. He had put it at £150, so potentially if no one else had been watching it and wanted to bid I 'could' maybe have got the watch for £150 instead of £200, but I don't really believe that to be honest. So maybe I did slightly overpay for it, but you know what - with a new battery I'm quite happy with the deal and to finally own a really nice example of this iconic TAG Heuer model.
So now I need an SEL, well... actually, that's already in hand. Watch this space!
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