OWNED: TAG Heuer Aquaracer Quartz Chronograph

CAF1112.BA0803

Long term readers may remember the trail of bad decisions that led me to purchase this one. Not that there was anything wrong with it you understand, it's just that things just didn't work out how I planned. So way back in 2017 I visited Bicester Village and came away with a Calibre 16 Formula 1 CAU2012 in orange and black. This was a watch I had been looking for for a very long time and I couldn't believe my luck when I found it at the outlet. But, sadly... the clasp was terrible and I had to replace the strap to save my wrist from being ripped to shreds. Long story short I decided I didn't like the watch that much after all (I think the rot set in the moment I realised that only the hands were lumed, on a watch that cost about £2400 list price!) and I eventually traded it in for a Grand Carrera GMT with Watchfinder.

That was a bad move, I never liked those watches but I somehow convinced myself I did for a short time, just long enough to buy one.... and then come this January I was trading that back in again. I found a black dial 2000 Exclusive Quartz chrono on the website which I really liked and thought it was a great price too, but because the Grand Carrera was worth more I couldn't trade against it so I decided the best thing to do would be to trade it in against two watches... and so the CAF1112 came into my collection.

Obviously I liked it at first, although it was always second fiddle to the 2000, but again this was a model I had always been less then keen on... I think it looks good from some angles, but head on I actually think it's quite ugly... and the longer I had it the more I came to realise how little I liked the silver sub-dials against the blue dial. I much prefer the subdials when they are the same colour as the rest of the dial, like on my S/ELs for example.

I also don't like the hands much either. They are very blocky and blunt ended, just not appealing to me... I think I was dazzled by the blue dial in the first instance and didn't really notice these other things until I was already in possession of the watch. And yes, again I was more interested in the 2000 (which is immaculate and a much treasured part of my collection) so I wasn't being diligent enough... big mistake.

I must admit I did love the red minute hand for the chronograph, that is pretty cool, but I really don't like that inner ring on the bezel. Oddly, considering how little I wore the watch, the paint seems to have fallen out of that bezel during the time I owned it. I never noticed until I took pictures to sell the watch and realized how bad it looked. The pictures above are the original pictures from the Watchfinder site of my watch, and there's no sign of it being missing there either. But considering how little I actually wore the watch, it seems rather unlucky...

A few months ago I asked Watchfinder for a trade in price against a Carrera that was on their site for £2500 or thereabouts and they offered me £750. I decided to try and sell the watch myself instead even though I knew I probably wouldn't get as much as that... but I wanted the freedom to buy elsewhere (and I didn't want to have to spend £2000+ to get that trade in price either), so off to eBay it went. I started it optimistically high, just in case I got lucky, but soon realised that I wasn't going to get anywhere. I dropped it a few times and eventually received an offer of £635, which I decided to take as it was more than enough to cover the purchase of another watch I had found on eBay.

I really hate selling expensive things on eBay, so I was mighty relieved when the buyer left me feedback the next day saying how the watch had surpassed his expectations and how happy he was with it. Fantastic. In the meantime I had taken delivery of a WAB1112 Aquaracer, which I spotted in one of the catalogues I bought recently. It intrigued me because it was in fact the first 'Aquaracer', well mine wasn't... but that model was, and it started out life being called the 2000 Aquaracer, in the same way that the Aquagraph started out being called the 2000 Aquagraph.

But that's a tale for another day... I honestly can't say I'm sorry to see this one go, I just never took to it, even though I know it's a popular model and other people have told me how much they like it. The thing is once you decide you don't like it, you stop wearing it because once you know you're going to sell it at some point, then you start worrying about the condition too much. It just seems like this 'line' of purchases was a disaster really, I hate to think how much it cost me to get from the Formula 1 to the 2000 and the WAB1112 Aquaracer, in fact I'm not even going to work it out because it will be really annoying.

Still, I'm sure I'm not the only watch enthusiast who's burned through some cash trying to get the right watches into his collection! The trouble is, you never really know until you've bought it and worn it a bit, and by then it's too late. I am glad my buyer liked the watch when he got it, I had real worries that he would get it and then want to return it and all the rest of it... like I said, selling expensive things on eBay is not fun, but I'm glad I got lucky with a straightforward buyer.