WAU111D.FT6024
I know I've written about this watch before (about a year ago in fact) but it's one that periodically comes to my attention and plays on my mind. Last time I posted about it I said it seemed quite hard to find one (citing one from America and one from Japan), so imagine my surprise when I found one for sale in the UK on the 'EST1897' website!
EST1897 is a company I have bought from twice; first was my two tone 2000 Exclusive which I bought from their local store (EST1897 is actually a conglomerate of pawn shops so you might well have an EST1897 store in your town without knowing it), that was in the window and had been reduced by quite a good margin and I got it for under well £500 IIRC and secondly I bought my Link Searacer from them for a genuinely ridiculous price (£500, reduced from £995).
Currently the EST1897 website has over 800 TAG Heuer watches to choose from, which amazingly is about 200 more than Watchfinder... and it certainly makes for an interesting browse. The first watch I noticed was my wife's red dial S/EL which they have for a very reasonable £395, but then on the other side they also have a second generation orange dial Formula 1 chronograph for £995, which seems a little dear to me. Other pieces that caught my eye were a 500M Aquaracer like mine for £925, a yellow dial Chronotimer and a Calibre S Formula 1 '24' both also £925 and best of all a Super Professional for £950.
Prices on EST1897 are always a bit all over the place and no doubt they would probably say that's partly because they are an amalgamation of different shops coming together so they don't have the pricing consistency that one organization would, and also because they are pawn shops it probably depends on the deal that was done when they took the watch in - this is something that Watchfinder have also told me by the way, and I guess that would apply with any business selling pre-owned goods.
In any case, EST1897 do have one great feature and that is that they seem to love a good sale, and their sale prices are often significantly cheaper than their screen prices. I think they get to a point where they suddenly decide they have too much stock and they really smack it down which is great if they have something you want. In fact I'm secretly hoping this WAU111D sticks around long enough to make it into their sale because while I probably can't justify spending £995 on it, if it drops to £750 or so (or even less) then I might just change my mind.
No doubt I'd end up changing the strap to a pin and buckle (BT0714) but that's not a big issue. I just love the look of this one with the high contrast black/white colour scheme and the tiny pops of red on the hands. I presume the 12 is lumed as well and the grand date at the '6' position is nice. Looks in great condition too. Damn sure I'm never going to use an alarm on a watch, but then I rarely use a chronograph and I have plenty of those...
I've just noticed how they've placed all the Arabic hour markers (bar the 12) on the bezel. I like the way they've flipped them over too so that the 4,5,6,7 and 8 aren't upside down, very cool! Damn you TAG Heuer why do you have to make these watches so damned attractive, I'm already working three jobs to feed my habit*, just stop it already!
*This is not true
EST1897 assure us that they check every watch for authenticity and they even give you a little card certificate to 'prove' it, but would I trust a collection of pawn shops to spot the latest fake Aquaracers? I'm not so sure, but with these obscure models at least that's not really an issue, I really don't think anyone is faking these WAU111Ds.
Well, here's the link; if you want to buy it I totally understand, but I really kinda hope you don't!
:)
WAU111D.FT6024 on EST1897
No comments:
Post a Comment