OWNED: Seiko SNDE03P1 Quartz Chronograph

SNDE03P1

Pretty sure you weren't expecting this, right? Well, as it happens this past weekend I bought a Seiko wall clock, a fairly plain affair albeit with a rather nice textured dial that looks a bit like frost. Not quite to the level of the Grand Seiko 'Snowflake' you understand, but then it only cost £27.50 so you can't expect miracles! Anyway, this got me thinking about my last non TAG Heuer wristwatch...

As you probably know by now (if you've been reading my blog for a while) my TAG Heuer fixation didn't really kick off until 2016 when I bought my Carrera Heuer 01 and crucially (the same weekend) a pre-owned Formula 1 off eBay. But leading up to this I had worn a very 'TAG Heuer Carrera-ish' Citizen, a Breil and latterly (once I split the bracelet on both of those!) this Seiko SNDE03P1.

I must have bought this in the very early months of 2016, because I know I only had it for about six months. Once I bought the Formula 1 I took the decision to cut all non-TAG Heuer watches out of my life and sold this one on eBay. This wasn't quite the philosophical statement it might sound, it was more that by this point I had four TAG Heuer watches and I needed to start wearing at least one of them every day instead of keeping all four 'for best'.

This was a crucial stage in my watch collecting development actually, as I had to force myself to wear an 'expensive' watch everyday and get used to the idea that it was okay to do so. This helped me enormously in the long run and I now wear all but my automatics and my Microtimer on a daily basis. This might sound a bit daft, but four years ago the idea of wearing a £1000+ wristwatch to work was completely alien to me.

My Briel was a titanium Ducati model with a carbon fibre dial and that was an attempt to step up my watch game a bit, from memory I believe it cost me about £350... I took it back to get a quote to repair the bracelet and replace the curved crystal which had a scratch in it, this came in at £180 and it was about then that I realised that £2-500 tier watches were perhaps not the best way to go.

I decided that it would be far better to invest that £180 in a new watch (and believe it or not I actually managed to get about £80 for the Breil on eBay even with a broken bracelet and a scratched glass). I toyed with the idea of stepping up further, but then made the mistake of 'settling' for this blue dial Seiko.

I guess you can see why it appealed to me; blue rubber strap, metallic blue dial with orange highlights, dive bezel, oversized 45mm case, 6-9-12 chronograph... on paper it seems perfect, but owning this watch was definitely not a rewarding experience. In fact almost as soon as I'd bought it it felt like a mistake, but I persevered...

Obviously it's a few years ago now, but I do remember that the watch was very top-heavy. It seemed to rattle around on my wrist an awful lot, something I've never experienced with any of my TAG Heuers it must be said! And after a few months the watch started doing some weird things that necessitated a return to the service centre. So actually, that six month period was more like five because the watch was away for 3-4 weeks and I kind of remember being vaguely disappointed when it came back that they'd managed to fix it.

After this I really took against it and once the Carrera and the F1 were in the house it was only a matter of time, I think I received the Formula 1 on the Monday and the Seiko was on eBay by the end of the week. It didn't sell easily either, I eventually managed to salvage just £45 of my original £160 investment, so it didn't even hold it's value. So much for the mighty Seiko... ;)