530.806K
I've had this one a good few weeks now and just realised that I completely forget to do my 'Buying Experience' post!
I've been after one of these for a long time, but I never actually thought I would get my hands on one at a reasonable price. I remember being excited to see one in the TAG Heuer museum last September, so I've obviously been chasing one for well over a year. I think that was pretty much the moment I knew I had to get one, along with the S/EL and the 3000 Series; that visit has cost me a lot of money over the last twelve months!
Photo from the TAG Heuer Museum in La Chaux de Fonds
I found one of these for sale (here in the UK) quite a long time ago, maybe even as far back as July 2018; which was before I even went to Switzerland... and I seriously considered taking a very long drive to go and check it out, but in the end I never did. I wanted to try the watch on so that I could bid with confidence if one came up on eBay, but the opportunity never arose and taking a six hour drive just to try a watch on is a bit ridiculous... even I can see that!
The watch was offered by 'Watches of Lancashire', who have some absolutely stunning looking watches on their website - at prices that will make your wallet wince. Their 530.806 is still being offered for the same price as when I found it (£1500), which is a hell of a lot of money, even if it has been restored and does come with a two year guarantee. To be fair, from the photographs, all their watches look to be in incredible condition, but that's nearly three times what I ended up paying for mine (they also used to have a gorgeous gold-bezel Kirium on the site for £800, but it's gone now... thank goodness!).
Similarly on eBay I'd seen (very) few of these come up, and usually the prices were over the £1000 mark. I do remember one selling for about £600 in Germany, but the condition wasn't as good as this one; also it was on a leather strap and the postage to the UK was quite a lot as well. The leather strap wasn't a big issue, actually I was concerned that the clasp/bracelet on this might be uncomfortable so before I bid for it I made some enquiries and found that the original heavily stitched blue leather strap for this is still available direct from TAG Heuer and for a surprisingly reasonable £87. Thankfully when it turned up it transpired that the bracelet was actually very comfortable, and even though it has a significant taper on it and the watch is quite large (42mm) it doesn't flap about like I feared it might. Actually it's one of the most comfortable larger watches I own, and much less top-heavy than my 43mm Aquaracers.
I found this when it was bidding at £365 on eBay, but I knew it would go up and it had still had five days to run... but I was pretty determined to get it and so I waited it out and placed my bid with seconds to go. The price rose from £365 to £501 the day after I found it and then to £550 half an hour before the auction ended. I poured over the photographs for what seemed like the hundredth time and resolved to put this one to bed. So I asked myself, what's the absolute maximum you are willing to bid for this, what's the number where you aren't going to regret bidding a little bit more if you don't get it? With the Pilot watches on Chrono24 starting at around £1200 I came up with a good number, I don't remember exactly what it was but it was somewhere between £850 and £900 I think. Thankfully, I didn't have to go that far and the auction ended with me as the winning bidder and just £570 out of pocket. What a result!
The Pilot came with the original instructions (but no box)
Reactions to my photos of the 'Pilot' on the Calibre 11 forum were mixed to say the least, with Mr Orange comparing it to the 'Demogorgon' from the TV show 'Stranger Things' and saying it looked like 'a Breitling Navitimer, only uglier!' Well, if there's one thing I've come to expect from Mr Orange it's brutal honesty. He further explained his comparison by highlighting the fact that the watch seemingly has five bezels, while Yago added that it looked like an exploded F1. Positive comments were harder to come by, actually the 'best' comment came from Pitfitter446 who said: 'Jings that looks busy'...
Still, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that, and I think it looks fantastic. Even better, it works perfectly; the chronograph operates and resets flawlessly and the bidirectional bezel turns smoothly. The only slight imperfection really is a couple of light scratches to the aluminium bezel and a couple of very light marks to the crystal at around the 1 position which you can only see by tilting the face until the light hits the glass just so.
It took me a long time to bag one of these, but now that I have I can honestly say this is 100% a keeper in the collection. Picking it up at the price I did is a huge bonus, but I think in all truth that even if I'd had to pay £1000 to get one, I'd still be happy. Maybe one day I might consider replacing the glass and the bezel insert, but for now I'm kinda happy it's not completely perfect as it makes it easier to wear it day to day without stressing about it too much.
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