BUYING EXPERIENCE: TAG Heuer 1500 Series GMT Watch

159.006

Over the last couple of years I've pondered over many 1500 Series TAGs on eBay, the most common of which seem to come with a rather nifty silver granite dial. Indeed, when I started looking these were quite affordable, but as time has gone by the prices seem to have increased by a good 50%, but that's just the way it goes sometimes isn't it? One of the issues I had with the watches I came across was that the sizes were hard to pin down, ranging from 35-37mm depending on who you listened to, and I was reluctant to purchase something that was too small for me (this, admittedly, was before my collection started to fill up with 37/38mm watches!) and so I kept passing them over, albeit I knew I wanted to come back to the range at some point.

Then I spotted the GMT variant in a catalogue and thought it looked quite nice, but remained ignorant as to the size of that particular model. So when this one came up on eBay last week and I realised it was actually 40mm in diameter, then it was a case of game on! When I first found the watch it was bidding at £120, but I really expected it to go for between £400 and £500, probably low £400s... so I made a low bid and then sat back until the last day.

During the last day the watch climbed up to £250, where it sat for most of the day. Then about half an hour before the end of the auction it jumped up to £290, and then in the last minute it jumped to £323. I made my bid with 7 seconds to go and it initially jumped to £333, then someone else bid and pushed my bid (which was £387) up to £376. Thankfully the auction ended before they had a chance to bid again!

Two days later, the watch arrived and it fit me straight out of the box (which is great, but rather undermines the seller's claim that it had all it's links and would fit the biggest wrist. I do have a big wrist, but I generally have to have one or two links removed...) which saved me taking it somewhere to get it fitted at least! The box it came in was okay, the barrel case looks a bit past it's best and the cushion inside the case is from a different case, but... well, who cares. For £376, I think I did rather well.

It was a bit of a faff to set the watch properly, especially as I didn't have any instructions! But I got there in the end, the main confusion stemmed from the fact that the GMT hand and the date work from the same crown setting and once I'd figured that out it was relatively easy. As you can see from these pictures I didn't get the date in quite the right place, but I've now sorted this and it changes over perfectly, if rather slowly.

The watch has the old style (six digits) number on the back plate, which tells me it's no newer than 1991. Considering that fact the watch is in fantastic condition. Yes there are some scratches to the bezel and the clasp, but the bracelet has absolutely no play in it whatsoever. Strangely the bracelet (and case) has that bead-blasted kind of effect that you find on the 4000 Series, albeit the steel looks a bit lighter in comparison. As you'd expect, the lume is definitely past it's best, but still lights up dimly.

Overall, I have to say I'm rather chuffed with this. I did wonder if the white dial was what I really wanted (this was also made in black), but for one thing it's not like there's a huge choice of these out there to buy, and on reflection I think the red GMT hand looks better on the white dial anyway. It certainly plays to the 'Rolex Explorer on a budget' narrative! One thing I would say though, I've already misread the time twice in poor light by confusing the GMT hand for the minute hand, but I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually.

Rolex Explorer II - £6250!

Also, I didn't notice until just now but this isn't a million miles away from the very cool but unfortunately very small TAG Heuer Airline that I was watching on an auction not so very long ago. Admittedly it doesn't have the awesome bracelet with the city names printed on, but if I remember correctly that one went north of £500 (before we even talk about import taxes) and at 35mm it's just too small for my 7.3/4" wrist. Yes I do own an original F1, but I made a particular exception there for the sake of history.

So there we are then, my third purchase of 2019 already... and I thought this year was going to be more restrained! It's not doing much for my plans to save for my 50th birthday present, and I've already got my eyes on something else...