380.513
You may well remember me writing about this some time ago, but after that post was published I was contacted by a gentleman from the USA who owned the watch and believed he had bought it from the listing I had highlighted.
He contacted me to ask if I could tell him any more about the watch as he now realised it was somewhat rare and as such he felt he couldn't wear it day to day which is why he had bought it in the first place. He also wasn't particularly fussed about the Van Halen connection, ideally he wanted to sell it and buy a normal 380.513 instead that he could wear daily.
Note the crown stopper still in place!
I said I couldn't help him further but offered to put him in touch with TAG Heuer who might be able to give him some history on it. Unfortunately this was not the case, but in their discussions they did say that they would like to buy the watch from him for the museum. I also found an interested party in Japan, but who felt his limit of $1000 wouldn't be enough to secure the watch.
Apparently the guy who owned the watch wasn't overly concerned with selling to the highest bidder and he thought the watch really belonged in the museum, as long as they were willing to pay a reasonable amount for the watch.
At the end of the day they could not agree terms since he was offered less than a standard (and relatively common) 380.513 would have fetched on the pre-owned market and so the sale fell through. I must admit at the time I was really quite shocked at how low the offer had been considering the rarity of the piece, but maybe Van Halen aren't that culturally significant in Switzerland?
Of course since all this happened Van Halen have been in the news quite a bit following the death of their legendary lead guitarist Edward Van Halen, which no doubt would have pumped up the interest and potential value even more.
I had kind of forgotten about all this until I found these pictures in a folder, which the guy sent me to use on my blog. So I thought I would share them with you now and if Gray happens to be reading this maybe he can give us an update on what happened to the watch and whether he did in fact sell it on and buy a 'normal' 380.513?
I would love to own this, even though I wasn't a big fan of the '5150' album or the Sammy Hagar era of the band, but with or without the unique dial this is in such incredible condition, I wish my regular 380.513 was comparable.
LINK TO MY ORIGINAL 'SPOTLIGHT ON' POST FOR THE 'VH-5150' 380.513
Hi Brian, really? Well if you want to sell I can point to you to someone who would buy it from you.
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