BUYING EXPERIENCE: TAG Heuer Formula 1 'Classic' Quartz Ladies Watch

 

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Now that my wife has fallen for the charms of the classic Formula 1 watches (as have I of course), her enthusiasm for acquiring more of varied colours shows no sign of abating. There are three or four models she would like to add; the black/yellow being one, the shocking pink another and the two tone navy/baby blue is also in the running... last but not least is this light grey/pink model which she's been after for a while. Bizarrely I managed to find four examples on eBay over the course of two days, which is just plain odd if you ask me!

Two of those were being offered by sellers based in Japan, which raises the question of import taxes (I'm actually in the process of buying a Formula 1 from Japan myself, but as yet it hasn't arrived)... but as there were two available in the UK it didn't seem necessary to over-complicate things!

Annoyingly, I found one of the UK listings before the one I eventually bought and it needed a new strap and a new battery, (I've never bought a watch off eBay that needs a new battery, because that is a gamble... they say it needs a new battery, but is that all there is to it? Maybe it's true, if so how long has that dead battery been inside the watch? Has it leaked and trashed the movement?) but since I own several of these and have changed the batteries in them myself I reasoned that it was probably a risk worth taking and I know the strap is only £32, so...

The watch was an auction with a starting price of £149.99; hard to find it may be in this colour scheme (although with two for sale in Japan, clearly not as rare as was first thought!) but I reasoned that with no battery and a broken strap the seller might be prepared to let it go at a much better price, so I made an offer of £115. The seller didn't respond and I thought it might be a good idea to find out more in case I wanted to bid higher so I contacted the seller and asked them if they knew when they battery had died. Admittedly it would have been smarter to ask this before making my low bid, but there you are... we all do stupid things on eBay!

The seller said they had no idea, but it was quite a long time.... which worried me, but I had already made an offer so I had to hope it would expire and I could forget it and move on.

Irritatingly the next afternoon I found the one I eventually ended up buying with a 'Buy it Now' price of £149, this one had a complete strap but also a dead battery! Again I contacted the seller to enquire about the deadness of the battery and this time I was told it had been a couple of months (so let's assume 3-6 months)... but of course, my offer on the other listing hadn't quite expired so I had to sit on it for a few more hours or risk ending up with two grey/pink F1s!

Thankfully the offer eventually expired and I was free to buy this one. It came a few days later, packaged in a TAG Heuer service case and looked in superb condition - but even so I was nervous about it until I unscrewed the back and saw a pristine movement, completely untarnished by battery acid! Luckily I had the 377 battery required in stock and once changed the watch sprang into life and has been ticking away nicely ever since.

My wife will be getting this for our 27th wedding anniversary in a couple of weeks time (she does know that, but she hasn't seen it yet), I'm sure she will be over the moon with it as it really is quite pretty and in extremely good condition for its age.