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Slowly but surely I am divesting myself of my excess of watches and unfortunately this classic F1 quartz is the latest to bite the eBay bullet. I can't deny it's one of the cooler looking colour schemes for the old Formula 1 range and mine was in lovely condition - but the truth is I never really felt that comfortable wearing it. For one thing, you just know that light blue strap isn't going to stay pristine-looking forever (unless you're very careful with how you wear the watch and indeed what you wear on your sleeve next to it as the plastic strap can take pigment from clothes).
Aside from that, the baby-blue colour, combined with the 35mm diameter of these older watches, made it look just a little bit... feminine. Especially on a rather rotund chap like myself! Oddly enough I never really felt that way about any of the other classic F1s; indeed I really love the yellow/black and yellow/grey models and even the day-glo orange and grey doesn't feel quite as 'My Little Pony' on the wrist as this one.
Despite that it's actually quite hard to let it go because as a design I do really like it and it took me a long time to find one in good condition at a realistic price. But ultimately if I don't enjoy wearing it then I don't really see the point in keeping it; surely it's better off with someone who will wear it and enjoy it properly?
A while back I would have said it didn't matter, that it was part of a 'collection' etc, etc, and that is all well and good. But it's thirty years old now and if the movement gives up the ghost then I'm stuck with something that's probably uneconomical to repair - which I don't mind so much if I'm intending to wear it, I'll take the hit for the new movement, but not if it's just going to sit in my 'collection'.
Unbelievably this is the tenth watch I've waved goodbye to this year, which of course does have an upside - my watch buying fund looks very healthy right now! But given the current economic climate here in the UK I'm not really feeling particularly 'gung-ho' about splashing out on anything luxurious.
So for now I'm kind of stuck in watch-limbo; happy to sell watches and amass funds for future purchases, but none to keen to actually buy anything. Of course that doesn't stop me window shopping for Grand Carrera chronographs and there's always the blue and white 160th Dato Carrera on my mind... (although my fund certainly isn't that healthy yet).
Thankfully this determination to slim down my rather overinflated collection does seem to be having positive effects in that it forces me to look critically at the watches I have left and analyse my feelings towards each of them in order to determine which ones I want to keep and which ones I want to sell. This obviously creates positive and negative emotions, but ultimately I think it's better to have less watches that I feel more strongly about.
Fortunately, 'collecting' and now selling these classic Formula 1s doesn't seem to have left me too much out of pocket, so at least it hasn't been an expensive mistake... and actually I wouldn't say it was ever really a mistake as such as it has been fun to experience most of the different models first hand; it's just that my priorities have changed and I realised that I really didn't 16 very similar watches. I will always have a handful of classic F1s in my collection though, a) because I genuinely like them and b) because of their historical importance to the history of TAG Heuer.
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