BUYING EXPERIENCE: TAG Heuer Formula 1 Quartz Watch

 
375.513

It seems like only a few months ago that I had just the one 'classic' Formula 1 quartz, and indeed it was... but now I have, erm... five. And another one en-route from Japan (say it quickly and it doesn't sound so bad!) which will be my Christmas present from my wife, so that's fine. :)

This one also came to me from Japan, and was one of two I left bids on overnight (they finished at 5:30AM which is probably a sensible hour in Japan, but I'm not getting out of bed at that time of the morning to bid on watches) but the only one that I won. Never mind, I found another example of the other one elsewhere and that's what's coming for Christmas.

 As you can see it was listed wearing this spectacularly dreadful non-original bracelet and believe me these pictures make it look a lot nicer than it actually was. It really was the most horrible, jangly, folded metal garbage and to be completely honest it kinda put me off. So disenchanted was I with it that I actually put it away for a few days, partly because I didn't have time to mess about with it but partly because I was kinda thinking that maybe I'd made a mistake buying it!

So it sat in the cupboard for a week before I actually decided to do something about it and of course, could I get this stupid bracelet off? My (inadequate) bracelet tool just wouldn't get into the space and so since I wasn't in the slightest bothered about keeping the bracelet, I dismantled it and then bent the spring bars to remove it. Obviously I will be looking into getting a better bracelet tool now for future use, a lot of them seem to be 3mm wide which is too wide for the slots in most of my bracelets.

I started to get interested in this model a few weeks ago when I photographed my wife's 375.508 on the beach and realised how nice it looked. I actually tried to get one a little while back (HERE) but it didn't work out, and as ever that was from Japan as well... this time things worked out for me and I already had two spare black plastic straps so I really didn't care if the watch came on the bracelet or not. In fact I told the seller he could keep the bracelet if he wanted (it would have saved me struggling to get it off), but I think he must have parcelled the watch up before the auction ended.

Speaking of which the delivery on this from Japan was phenomenal. The auction finished at 5:30AM on Monday morning and by lunchtime I had an email from DHL telling me the parcel had been collected and was on the move. A bit later I got an email telling me I needed to send them £18 for taxes due and I did that straight away and by the end of the day the watch was in Hong Kong and scheduled to arrive with me in the UK on Thursday. This was fine with me as my wife (who usually works from home) had to go into work on Wednesday, but would be at home on Thursday.

Of course, then DHL sent me an email on Wednesday telling me that my parcel was out for delivery. I tried to re-arrange it for the next day but they pushed on and delivered it to my next door neighbour anyway! Well I guess you can't moan when they get it to you a day earlier than they promised, but isn't that just bloody typical! Oh well, not a big problem... and initially I was excited about the watch, at least until I put off removing the bracelet and put it to one side.

One thing I have noticed since I purchased the watch is that it looks to have had the bezel replaced at some point and in doing so they have switched it from a black/green bezel to a black/white one. It doesn't overly bother me since it still looks like it could have been that from the start, but I am pondering the idea of colouring the white numbers on the bezel to make it look original. I have already tried using a dry-board marker and it worked surprisingly well, except of course dry-board marker isn't permanent and it wasn't the right shade of green at all so I rubbed it off again, but I will try and find some way to do that and if not, well white looks okay anyway.

Happily, as soon as I put it on the correct black plastic strap all my misgivings about my purchase dissipated and if nothing else it just shows how important the right strap is to the overall look and appeal of a watch. Frankly I think any watch that was wearing that God-awful piece of junk strap would look decidedly unexciting and suitably appeased I wore the watch for the rest of the day.

So yes, now they are five in number, but this is my first steel cased model (or perhaps I should say exposed steel, since the others are coated steel, even though they look like plastic). I think overall I prefer the coloured cases, but that said the orange and grey one with the steel case looks quite nice...