Tuesday 17 March 2020

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer Aquaracer One Piece Box Set

WAY218C.FC6364   WAY218D.FC6364

You may remember I did a post about this watch before and you'll probably recognize it as I used it for the banner link to my Gallery Blog as well. But what I didn't know at the time was that while there were 1000 pieces made and sold as the WAY218C with all 9 characters* on the backplate there was also a set of 100 'box sets' made which came with 9 backplates, each depicting one of the nine 'One Piece' characters.

*Just to confuse things further, according to this article if you pre-ordered your 'One Piece' Aquaracer WAY218C, you could choose which character appeared on your watch's back-plate!

According to Wikipedia: 'One Piece' is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda. It has been serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine since July 22, 1997, and has been collected into 95 tankōbon volumes. The story follows the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy, a boy whose body gained the properties of rubber after unintentionally eating a Devil Fruit. With his crew of pirates, named the Straw Hat Pirates, Luffy explores the Grand Line in search of the world's ultimate treasure known as "One Piece" in order to become the next King of the Pirates.


I'm a bit confused by the idea of selling a watch with different backplates as that rather suggests that you can swap them over as you please. You could, but presumably not until the 2 year warranty has expired... then again - I somehow doubt these are genuinely intended to be used and are much more likely to be kept in the box, not least because using the backs would devalue them. 'Tis a strange world we live in indeed!

The 'Treasure Box' looks pretty cool though I must say, kinda like something I would expect from Omega! Although what exactly you would do with it is anyone's guess.


It's great that TAG Heuer don't take themselves too seriously to indulge in these Special Edition watches, I have no idea about 'One Piece', but I've always thought this watch looked rather interesting and this series must have quite a following if they are prepared to make 100 of these box sets. No idea what the original list price on these was I'm afraid, but this one is currently on eBay for $6999

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/323881435763


I'm currently working hard on a new 'page' for this blog where I am listing every TAG Heuer part number I can find and linking it to an image. This is not a quick job, we are talking several thousand links... but work is advancing steadily and I hope to have it (mostly) done in a few weeks time. I am also highlighting any unusual models (such as this one for example) and where possible providing details of the number of pieces produced. I will also use this page to provide some pre-made searches of my 'Gallery' blog as I know all too well that the search facility is unreliable and the label tool is awkward to use. More to follow on this soon...

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