BUYING EXPERIENCE: TAG Heuer Aquaracer Ladies Quartz Watch

 

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I never thought I'd see the day when my wife would own a two-tone watch. Every time I bought one she said nice things but I could tell she didn't feel the same way about them that I did. Then maybe a year or two ago she started to soften a little bit, started dropping things into conversation like '...well, I don't have any gold watches...', things like that. And so the long, slow slide towards 'ownership' began. I'm sure you know how it goes.

Then a couple of weeks ago I caught her looking at two-tone watches again, this time on Est 1897 (now H&T). Now one of the great things about ladies watches is that they are much less likely to be fakes, and even less so in two tone, but still of course you should be careful. The watches she was looking at on Est 1897 however I had no concerns about as they were 8-10 years old and mostly rather dreary looking.

Truth be told there seems to be two types of two-tone ladies watches, there's the subtle, some might say boring ones that were advertised by the likes of Uma Thurman back in the day. They are all cream dials and delicate hints of rose gold, and exactly the sort of watches my wife had described as 'dull' a million times over in the past. And then there are the more... 'in-your-face' ones, like this one.

To be honest there was one rather nice one on there, a Link Lady with a gold bezel and two tone bracelet, but it was clearly damaged (you could see end link was bent and the pin was visible, which is pretty bad honestly) and probably needed a whole new shoulder, so that was out. 

Then one day this Aquaracer appeared on Watchfinder and I pointed it out to my wife, who promptly said 'Oh that's new, that wasn't there the other day'. The watch was on for £2050, with just a couple of months of its original two year warranty remaining. The watch has recently been discontinued and the only new ones I could find were on websites I didn't trust (I found one on a website that I once rang about a green Aquaracer and they became very shady when I told them I wanted to buy it but that I would be sending it straight to TAG Heuer for authentication).  

I thought I had found one on Goldsmith's website, but it turned out to be a 'Caribbean Exclusive', which is similar but without the cool wavy dial (it has a flat blue dial with the Caribbean islands printed on it in gold) or the gold crown - which looks kinda odd I have to say. Plus neither I nor my wife have ever been to the Caribbean, and we're not likely to either so it's a bit weird to buy a watch like that. Saying that, I still regret not buying the 'Hawaii' Aquaracer from Bicester Village when I had the chance. 

I also looked on Chrono 24, but any savings to be had there were outweighed by the potential customs charges, and to be honest, I kinda wanted to buy from somewhere we could send it back if my wife decided she wasn't so keen on two tone after all!

Once we'd decided to go forward with the purchase I sent an offer to Watchfinder, knowing that previously they had always accepted. This time I felt this watch was probably not going to have too much wiggle room because I was pretty sure they would feel confident they could sell a watch like this without too much trouble. But nothing ventured, nothing gained as they say and I sent an offer of £1825 on Sunday evening. 

On Monday morning I got an email telling me they couldn't accept my offer but could we meet at £1900 (which was about a £450 saving over the new price). This seemed acceptable, especially given there weren't a whole lot of other places to pick one up, and also since I dredged the entire TAG Heuer ladies two-tone archives for her to sift through and this one still came out way on top. 

The watch arrived on Wednesday while I was at work, and I got a message during the day, 'Watch is here and it's beautiful!'. I must admit I was a little surprised, I was more then half ready to get home and find that she wanted to send it back, but no, she really loved it. The watch did have a small mark on the bezel and some light marks to the gold plated links on the bracelet, but I had already told her she had to expect this as Watchfinder wouldn't polish a gold plated watch like they would a steel piece. Fortunately her eyesight isn't that great anyway so she couldn't even see them - haha! 

My wife had been waiting on the release of the new red/pink dial ladies 30mm Aquaracer, but ultimately she decided she really didn't want another automatic in her collection and she didn't want to pay £4400 for the new two tone Aquaracers either (which are also automatic of course). And actually, as soon as she saw a photo of the new red/pink Aquaracer she looked like she was gonna throw up, so this was clearly the right choice!

I must admit it does look a little strange seeing a two tone watch on my wife's wrist and it will probably take a long time to become normal since I imagine she will only wear it when we are going somewhere that warrants it. At 32mm it's also as big a watch as my wife's wrist will take, and the gold bezel is really pushing it.  

Despite that I have to say it looks pretty cool, and the dial is definitely kind of purple rather than really pure blue, which does add to the overwhelming opulence of the overall aesthetic. For sure it's pretty in your face, but I know if she'd bought one of those bland Lady Links or Carreras with the cream dials she wouldn't have liked it.