WK1110-1
Where to begin with this one... a while back I did a post about the watches I had sold and whether I regretted my decision or not: one of those was my WK1110-0 which I somewhat missed but was simply not prepared to pay over the odds to get it back. But then I went on eBay and started getting nostalgic for my old 2000 again and this one popped up on my radar at a reasonable price.
It was being sold on a black leather strap, a Seiko as it turned out, which I didn't mind as I intended to put it on a strap of some kind anyway (I already have one 2000 bracelet sitting in a drawer that I took off my Multigraph because I couldn't get on with it).
My bid was £246, which was about £100 less than I had sold my old 2000 for, albeit that had a bracelet a rubber strap and a full set of box and papers... but I was fully aware that to buy my old watch back would cost anywhere between £400 and £500 most likely, so I was happy enough with that.
The seller contacted me and told me he would post on Tuesday for Wednesday delivery and sure enough it arrived just as promised. It was only when I took it out of the packaging that it struck me that it didn't look quite right. Not that it looked fake, but it didn't look like my old 2000 and indeed on closer inspection it turned out to be quite different.
My old WK1110-0 had a very matt black dial which I really liked but this one had a shiny black dial with a sunburst effect to it that made it look like there was a smudge on the glass even when there wasn't. It also had a lumed '12' whereas the new model had a polished number without lume, albeit the tritium on my old watch was feeble and this was surprisingly potent. The new one also had a white line around the date window which the old one didn't have, which wasn't a problem but it was another point of difference and I feel like that's why I was a bit disappointed as I had inadvertently bought a watch that was the 'same' as my old one, but not quite the same.
I would have taken it on the chin and maybe grown to love it were it not for the fact that the crown was in dire need of attention. It barely screwed down, there must have been a third of a turn of engagement at best and that was enough for me to start thinking about returning the watch. Thankfully the seller accepted returns and so by the end of the day the watch was in the post and on its way back to the seller.
It's a shame, but a) I've already bought too many watches lately, b) I should've been more careful about getting the exact same watch and c) I'm not sure I actually want to re-buy the watch I had before anyway. Oddly enough I mentioned it on the Calibre 11 forum and one of the members there (Imagwai) said that he had re-bought watches before but always ended up selling them again...
I have a feeling that he's probably right. In my head I sold this one because at the time I thought it was too small for my wrist, and now that I've got used to wearing smaller watches I thought it would be okay to get it back. But leaving aside the differences to my old one, it just didn't really excite me that much - as much as my memories of it were fond, I have to take into account that I have bought many, many watches since I sold my old WK1110-0 and maybe my collection has moved beyond standard three handed black dial 2000s?
As it was I was already thinking it might like a new bezel and if I'd sent it back to have the crown fixed no doubt it would have had to be serviced as well and it would have cost about £300 to get it right, by which time I've ended up with a £550 watch on a Seiko strap! No, sending it back was definitely the right course of action. Time to move on and forget about the 2000 Series, I've got the Multigraph and that will have to do!
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