WN1112
I haven't been on eBay since I bought my classic white dial F1 Chrono a few weeks ago (I'm wearing it right now actually), and yesterday when I went on the site I had no intention of buying anything. I did place several bids, albeit not for watches.. but I was rather tempted to throw my hat into the ring for this rather nice blue dial 2000 Exclusive which finished last night.
Offered with an 8" bracelet, this looked to be great value... and sure enough somebody picked this up for just £270, which seems like a bit of a bargain to me. Sure, I don't need another 2000 Exclusive, I don't 'need' any more watches full stop - but that's not a reason to quit now is it? I must admit I was quite surprised the watch didn't fetch more as blue dial watches in general are very desirable, but I must admit looking at the picture above something didn't look quite right, but I couldn't put my finger on it.
I really like my WN1153 2000 Exclusive, but I often wish I had one that wasn't two-tone, I thought the CN1110 I got in January (part of the trade I got for my Grand Carrera) was going to stroke that particular itch, but it doesn't seem to have worked. Somehow the chronograph version looks a lot more different than you'd think so it feels like a different watch altogether. Obviously I don't want to spend a lot of money to get a variation of a watch I already own, and sub £300 would have been very appealing, but having not long purchased my F1 Chrono (CA1212-1) and trying to build up my reserves pending new releases from Baselworld and my upcoming fiftieth birthday... well it didn't really make sense right now.
Admittedly, as I wasn't serious about bidding, I didn't go to the trouble of asking questions, so I don't know if the bezel is spinning like a top (for example, it's shown to move in the pictures, but does it move too much? Always a top question to ask that...). But on the face of it this was possibly something of a missed opportunity... my only reservation being that it seems a little too good condition wise. The bezels on these are almost always scratched and often quite badly, yet this one looks almost perfect... Hmm.
Looking a bit closer it's pretty apparent that there's been some polishing done and none too well actually. That bezel should look a lot more angular, and the raised parts of the bezel have lost their shape. Also, if you look at the bracelet, I believe the centre links should be polished and the outer links brushed... if you look closely you can see that the outer edges of the bracelet have been polished almost as if they were trying to mimic a 5 link bracelet (albeit with the polished parts on the outer edge), which is a bit bizarre.
Actually, I'm not 100% sure this is even on the right bracelet now I look at it. My 2000 Exclusives have a different centre link design altogether, this looks a lot like the standard 2000 bracelet, which it's entirely possible TAG Heuer might have supplied this on, but I'm still certain the outer links should be brushed. I don't suppose it would have been too hard to sort out the links with a Dremel and a bit of rouge, but there's no getting that bezel back how it should be. So maybe not so much a missed opportunity after all!
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