BUYING EXPERIENCE: TAG Heuer Formula 1 Quartz Ladies Watch

 

365.508

You may remember a little while ago I wrote a 'Not Buying Experience' post about this very watch. As you might recall, my first issue was that the seller had (0) feedback, and my second that they were in America so customs charges were to be expected. They had also set the carriage to the UK at something like £112, which was just hilarious, however even they saw the error of their ways there and changed the listing to utilise Amazon's worldwide postage service which brought it down to a much more agreeable £16.74.

There was still the undisclosed customs charges to worry about though, on top of the £286.74 I ended up paying for the watch, and while I had mentally prepared myself for an absolutely worst case scenario of maybe £80, I was still a little way off as the label below shows...

Hmm, £102.15 in taxes! That's quite a lot isn't it, really... oh well, it's not like I could get a classic NOS raspberry Formula 1 locally, so it is what it is. But even so... it doth grieve me slightly!

Putting that aside, what I actually got is pretty cool. The watch really does look spanking brand new (as indeed it should) and the packaging is in good condition. The oddly 'slanted' box is excellent, the cardboard sleeve not quite as perfect but perfectly acceptable for 30 years old and the booklet is intact, present and tidy.

The watch itself gives me some cause for concern - I'm not sure it's quite as vibrant as my wife is expecting, so I hope it's not a disappointment come Christmas morning, but we did establish that the colour is in fact raspberry and not the 'hot' pink we originally thought, so hopefully not.

That aside it seems to be running well and the hands and dial look fantastic, there's certainly no problem with legibility with those white hands, although obviously the tritium lume its past its best (about five years past it really) but still works, if somewhat dimly.

I did check with TAG Heuer to see if the strap was still available and indeed it is, although I was slightly panicked when they said there was '1' available. Of course, they meant there was one 'strap reference' available for that watch, while I (stupidly) thought they meant it was the last fuscia strap left in the world!

You might be wondering why a) the box is such a peculiar shape, and b) why the box is so big when the watch is so small. Well, as far as the first question goes, I can only imagine it's some expression of avant garde design... and as for the second question, the box is used for both male and female watches and has a sort of removable cradle to make the case smaller for women's watches. 

The white part with the logo and the F1 McLaren on it is card and opens to access the plastic base and watch and that whole part slides into the orange/transparent plastic sleeve. The instruction booklet goes underneath too, though there's no particular place for it to go, but it fits all the same.

All in all though, it seems my faith in Sodeia Watches was not misplaced and they have delivered exactly what they promised. I see they now have three (positive) feedbacks, one of which was for a minty looking full gold 1000 Series (980.017) with the original box - very nice!

So there we have it, the most expensive classic Formula 1 I have purchased so far (by quite some margin, most have been less than £200) and quite possibly the last, since I don't feel a desperate need to add any more to my collection and I think my wife probably has enough now as well. I think it's definitely time to start saving up and move onto something else.