CW5140.FC8147
TAG Heuer Boutique / Oxford Street, London 3rd August 2019
My wife and I popped in to the TAG Heuer boutique on Oxford Street today, it was the end of a long, hot, excessively busy day and we were about ready for home to be honest, but it was nice to see Aneta and Chau from Bicester (both have moved permanently to the London store) and while my wife got some info from Aneta about the upcoming green dial ladies Aquaracer I took the opportunity to try on one of the few watches in the store I haven't already had on my wrist. Admittedly it's not exactly my 'style', but it doesn't hurt to try on something different now and again, and now that I finally have a 'proper' Carrera in my collection (or I will have come October), I'm starting to focus my attention of nailing down some sort of Monaco in the next twelve months or so.
This particular Monaco measures 38mm square and 13mm thick, it contains a chronometer certified Calibre 17 movement and while I didn't catch the exact price, I know it was somewhere north of £11,000 (although I believe they might be willing to move a little bit on that if you are genuinely interested). In this particular instance the watch is supplied on a brown leather strap with a matching gold buckle (the watch is also available with a black strap) and a silvery-white dial. The strap seems a little short to me, it fitted but there wasn't much left over (my wrist is a little above average at 7.3/4") so if you have bigger wrists you might need to change that out.
Whether you choose the brown or black strap is a matter of taste, I think I'd probably prefer the black myself, but I like that this comes with a proper pin and buckle instead of a deployment clasp. The brown makes it more retro in my opinion, and hence less suited to me really... but it definitely goes quite well with the gold case. The only thing about the gold case is that it rather limits the dial colours one can pair with, and personally I'm not a fan of this silver/white dial. It's hard to know what would go well with it as the black dial gold Carreras don't look all that amazing either. I'm thinking a fairly dark blue might be a good choice, but this dial doesn't really create any significant contrast with the case and so appears a little 'flat' to me.
Clearly I'm not really the target market for this particular watch, but it's still interesting to get it on the wrist. I expected it to be a little heavier if I'm honest, but it didn't really feel significantly heavier than the watch I took off (my 43mm Aquaracer Calibre S) so I don't think that weight will be an issue for anyone. At 38mm it fits nicely on the wrist (38mm square is bigger than 38mm round) but a square cased watch is never going to be the most ergonomic of items. At this sort of money you've got to be seriously bowled over to plunge for this one, even if there is a deal to be had... but this is no longer on the TAG Heuer website (if it ever was?) and I'd suggest chances to buy this piece 'new' are probably running out, so if you are tempted then now may be the perfect time to make your move.
I also took the opportunity to pick up a copy of the new Autavia booklet (make sure to pick up the one in English as they have it in Chinese as well: unless you'd prefer it in Chinese of course) which is a nice little addition to my ever growing collection of TAG Heuer ephemera.
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