WF1112.BA0511
Last Friday I wrote about how I bought the green sharkskin strap for my grey dial WF1111 4000 Series and how I loved the look so much that I decided to buy another 4000 so that I could also get the blue sharkskin strap as well. This really came about when I found this picture while researching the 4000 Series for a future 'History' post...
Through my research I knew that the 4000 was only really available in five colours (white, grey, dark grey, gold and champagne) so it should be relatively easy to find a white one for sale. However the white dial was originally only available with a two-tone watch, but I didn't actually mind the thought of that either, the blue would work well with that and it would look even more spectacular!
In fact I can show you exactly what that would have looked like because TAG Heuer made a mid-size (32mm) watch with exactly that combination of colours.
WF1220.BC0637
I actually thought the white dial WF1112 (which was released later, along with 32mm and 28mm models) would be easy to find, but searching the usual places pulled up nothing. Dark grey dial WF1111s like I already had were easy to find, but white dials... not so much. I couldn't even find a full size white dial in two-tone and I didn't fancy the light grey dial very much either.
So instead of searching the usual places, I Googled WF1112 and my luck was in. A place in London called 'Designer Exchange' had one. I had never heard of this place before, and the bracelet didn't look all that promising, but since I was taking it off anyway I wasn't overly bothered about that.
The watch was 'on sale' at £515, down from £695. I don't think I would have paid £695 for it to be honest, but the 4000 Series does seem to hold it's value surprisingly well, even my (rather more common) dark grey dial WF1111 cost me around £400 and that has a glued on bezel! Besides, it's not like I could find one anywhere else so it was pretty much the only game in town.
I struggled a bit with their website, at first it would not go into the basket however many times I tried. I contacted them about it and was expecting an email in return telling me that the watch had been sold. But no, they said they had tried it and it worked fine. Sure enough, I tried again and it went into the basket...
Then I couldn't register an account, it just wouldn't work and kept giving me an error message. Again I contacted them and they told me to try typing my name in lower case characters but that didn't work. I also tried two more browsers (Edge and Opera) but they didn't work either. They forwarded my email to their technical help and I got an email asking me to clear my cookies and try again, this time my account registered with no problem and the WF1112 was mine.
The watch came the next day and despite them selling it with 'no box or papers' it arrived in a (well worn) black, square TAG Heuer box complete with an outer box. Somehow it had a pillow from a 'barrel box' inside, so I don't know what happened there... it also had a spare shoulder and one spare end link, along with a service warranty card from 2015 - which is presumably why the hands are so much brighter than the dial!
The bracelet wasn't as bad as I thought it looked in the pictures, it is a little stretched, but still functional and as luck would have it it fitted me without any need for adjustment so I could wear it straight away. Best of all, the green and red logo is in perfect condition so I can finally get to see what it is supposed to look like on my other 4000 Series.
I did have one awful moment though, on opening the box the watch appeared completely dead, despite the crown being fully screwed down. But I figured there was a 99% chance that it just needed a new battery and sure enough I opened the back and slipped a new Renata 395 in (interestingly not the same battery as my WF1111 takes) and it fired up no problem whatsoever. I assume this watch should have a battery warning system like the WF1111, so they should have picked that up when packing the watch really... oh well, for me at least it wasn't a massive problem. Of course I could have sent it back, but really what was the point when I had the battery in the house?
Well, that definitely concludes my watch buying experiences for this year, albeit... there is one more in the pipeline. Unfortunately I can't post about that one yet, it will probably be early January before that one is ready to go. It was certainly a roller coaster ride and a stressful project for myself and for the ultimate purchaser Mr Jim Dollares. More than that I cannot say at this juncture... but of course all will be revealed in due time.
Okay, so now I want a gold dial two tone 4000 with a red sharkskin strap.
And I'm not even joking!
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