WL111F.BA0701
My name is Rob and I really like Kiriums. There, I said it. It's not the most popular of opinions and some might say nothing to be proud of, but I don't care - my first Swiss watch was a Kirium and so naturally I have a strong bond to the design. As such, I've decided that I would like to add to my small collection of two Kiriums (the top-of-the-range 'F1' Kirium and my mid-blue dial chronograph) and this gorgeous, darker-blue dial three hander really caught my attention on eBay, not least because it started at 99p!
Obviously I wasn't expecting a bargain of epic proportions, especially given the condition of this piece, but I was hopeful I could secure this for a reasonable sum that wouldn't knock the bottom out of my ongoing watch fund. So I did the smart thing and searched eBay for sold listings, this told me that I should expect to pay somewhere between the low £200s up to about £340. Fair enough.
I bid on the watch at about £90 I think, and it slowly crept up every so often until it reached £220 when I stopped bidding. That was Friday afternoon, the listing was due to finish at 8pm that night. Unfortunately my wife wanted me to take her shopping that night, so I had to leave a bid about half an hour before the sale was due to end... not good.
Ah, but I forgot to mention something. Every time I look at a Kirium or another watch that I already own a similar piece, my first task is to compare the number of links in the bracelet to the one I have to see how it compares. I have a largish wrist and it's not unusual for bracelets to be a bit small on me, which obviously adds to the potential cost as I may have to source extra links.
The listing for this watch said 'the bracelet is quite small at 7" but I will include an extra link', and in fact the same line is used on all this person's listings... which is a bit odd. Looking at the photo I would estimate that this bracelet is actually more like 7.1/2" as it looks to be a half-link shorter than mine. So I contacted the seller to get some clarity on this, because if the watch was being sold as pictured plus one more link, then great, but if he was going to reduce it to 7" and give me a spare link then not so great. It sounds stupid, but watch dealers can be very shady. I also wanted to make sure the spare link had the appropriate collar and pin as well, because without it, it ain't no good!
Somewhat surprisingly, given the sellers excellent '100%' feedback, I didn't receive a response, which didn't exactly fill me with confidence, but still... by this point I was pretty sold on the watch and I had sourced a couple of spare links for about £16 each if the worst came to the worst.
So, just before I went out on Friday night I placed my final bid. The watch was sitting at £225 I think, and I reasoned it would definitely go up to nigh on £300, if not more. So to be safe I bid £317, factoring in £8.50 carriage plus a potential £35 for two extra links if necessary, meaning I could be the owner for about £360, which is about £315 less than it would cost to buy a similar piece from Watchfinder...
Incidentally, if you're getting a feeling of deja-vu reading this post, then trust me you're not alone. It wasn't until I started writing this post that I found a post I did about a month ago where I had found a WL111F on eBay, but decided not to bid on it because I was trying to save up for something bigger. That one was a couple of links short and sold for £225.... oh hindsight is a wonderful, wonderful thing, is it not?
So obviously I came back from the shops to find the watch had sold for £325, which was disappointing. In fact I was more disappointed than I expected, because I really thought I had a shot at this one - although I must admit finding that old post cheered me up no end, who's to say there won't be another WL111F for sale soon and maybe that one can be had for low £200s?
As it happens, I found another Kirium on eBay on the Friday night, a silver dial three hander this time, that was bidding in the low £100s and due to finish on Saturday. As there was no mention of the code and no photos of the back, I contacted the seller, because I didn't want to end up buying something that looked like a man's watch but turned out to be a ladies - lesson learned from buying that leather strap S/EL, pictures can be deceiving! I didn't think that was the case but in some of the photos it looked a bit small compared to the barrel case, plus the seller mentioned spare links and I wanted to know how many there were.
Glad I contacted the seller, they told me the watch said WL1111-0 on the caseback, which either means the seller misread the code, the watchback is off another watch or... well, who knows. A WL1111-0 should have a grey dial, not a silver one. As it happens, the watch sold for £259, which I wouldn't have paid anyway, so not a big problem!
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