Long term readers will probably recall that at one time I had a pretty mighty collection of the classic 'plastic' 35mm Formula 1 watches. In fact at one point I had fifteen of the little buggers and was gradually closing in on a complete set of the standard models (beyond that there's lots of Japanese limited editions with all sorts printed on the dial and there are others too like the 'Van Halen 5150' one that I wrote about previously, but that's a rabbit hole I had no intention of falling down). IIRC I needed the resin cream/navy blue one, a red/black one with a steel case and most notably of all the multi-coloured 'Ukyo Katayama' with the 'signed' glass.
I remember finding a few of the navy/cream on eBay but they were always either battered or expensive, and some times battered AND expensive, but I kept looking. The red/black steel was basically the same as one I already owned with the resin case so I was never in a hurry to pick that one up (and again, usually battered and expensive for some reason) and the Katayama I could only find for sale in Japan, usually mint but way more expensive than I wanted to pay.
But still, I had a very solid collection and they were all in great condition. I replaced countless straps (while they were still available from TAG Heuer at £32, not any more apparently - now it's £90 a piece on eBay which is ludicrous!), interestingly there seemed to be three kinds of these. First there were the very thick 'rubbery' ones that always seemed to come on anything I imported from Japan. Then there was the thinner, less rubbery ones that seemed to be the norm, and later some very thin and crappy ones that deteriorated extraordinarily quickly. In particular the dark green one which looked absolutely knackered after just a few days on the wrist.
So while my collection wasn't quite 'complete' it was in very good order. In fact I even bought a couple of watches twice to get a really good one.
Let's take a look at all the watches I owned...
The collection began in October 2018 when I purchased my all black 383.513 from eBay for £200. This came with a new strap, bezel, battery and glass and looked pretty mint on arrival. It was only later that I noticed the glass was actually quite smeary on the inside (it only showed up in photos at first, but then once I saw it I couldn't unsee it - we'll come back to this later).
This satisfied me for a while and funnily enough it wasn't really until the pandemic hit that I started 'collecting' classic F1s. With the future looking uncertain I stopped buying watches for the first few months of 2020, and then I looked to the classic F1s as a way to get my watch fix without committing large sums of money - oddly the exact opposite of what everyone else seemed to be doing!
I picked up a 385.513/081 on a black strap in July 2020, but then immediately bought a red strap for it to turn it into a 385.513/085, which was what I really wanted all along....
And then later the same month I grabbed a yellow/black 380.513... I probably should have stopped there. These are probably three of the the best classic F1s, but of course I had the bug now and so it wasn't long before I added another one.
September 2020 I picked up the grey/yellow F1 from Japan. I distinctly remember going to the seaside for the day and coming home to find a jiffy bag on the doormat, inside was my minty 382.513, which I must confess is perhaps the one I regret selling the most. But like all these watches, at just 35mm it was kinda small on me - stunning though and in incredible condition. I loved the silver markings on the dial, and it was quite practical having a grey strap instead of yellow. Hmm.. kinda like looking at a photo of an old girlfriend, this one. 🤣
A month later I got my first steel cased classic F1 - the green/black 375.513 and to be honest when it arrived (again from Japan) I was a little disappointed. It came on a crappy (non TAG Heuer) steel bracelet, but even once I had bought a resin strap for it I did not like the steel case as much as the resin, and the watch looked a bit tired - eventually I re-bought this one, selling the original for about the same price on eBay. The bezel is also wrong on this one, though I didn't notice at first!
Another month passed and I got the blue/black, and this one was a little disappointing too to be honest. It wasn't bad, but it was definitely not giving me the buzz that the first few had. Again, maybe now would have been a good time to stop - but I carried on regardless, after all these watches cost less than a new TAG Heuer strap in some cases, and with the furlough scheme kicking in I was a little more relaxed about my finances.
It didn't take me long into the new year to start adding to my collection and by February I had bought the orange/grey WA1213 (signifying a post 1992 piece, the numbering system changed in 1992). I really liked this one and the new strap I got for it from TAG Heuer at Bicester Village was insanely bright. Seriously, no photograph I've ever seen has come close to capturing the full effect of the day-glo strap on this one.
The collecting stalled for a few months but in June 2021 I finally replaced my original 375.513 with a much nicer example with a correct 'green' bezel.
In July 2021 I bought one of the worst classic F1s. In pictures I always liked it and it was one of the hardest to find in good condition at a reasonable price - in fact I ended up buying it on a terrible white leather strap and replacing it with a new resin one. I'm talking of course about the red/green 384.513, which should be a signature piece considering it is literally made in the colours of TAG Heuer... but in reality it honestly looks like it came out of a Christmas cracker. Such a shame...
You'd think the disappointment would have slowed me down but by now I was obsessed and honestly buying for the sake of buying. But I couldn't stop and so the same month I also bought the steel cased black/yellow WA1216. Again this wasn't that exciting really, but it was definitely better than the previous one and the condition was excellent.
And the same month I also bought another 385.513 so that I could have one with a red strap and one with a black strap. Because that's totally reasonable! 🤣
Aftet that I actually paused my collecting for a few months, but in November 2021 I picked up the steel cased pink/black WA1217 and the steel cased lume dial 371.513 (in the same weekend).
By now I was pretty much set on collecting all the three handers, and like the loon I am I proceeded to finish out the year by buying both the blue/blue 388.513 (which was really nice but very impractical with that baby blue strap)...
...and also the rather dull steel-cased blue/red WA1210, by which point honestly I was totally blasé about the whole thing. I distinctly remember receiving this one in the post and thinking 'Yeah, it's okay... I guess' and putting it in the cupboard with the others.
Yay, watch collecting is fun!!!
Despite this, come April 2022 I bought my final classic F1, the steel cased lume-dial/green bezel 372.513. Annoyingly this one cost me quite a lot and then I had to get it fixed because the hands weren't aligned. I really should have sent it back, but it was in great condition so I took it on the chin. Very silly that. Very silly indeed!
And so my collection was 'complete'... well, not 'complete' as I was still missing a few, but as complete as it ever got. It's a real shame I don't have a photograph of all of them together, but I did try and take one - it's just hopeless though as I could never get them all in focus or all without reflections on the glass, so I gave up.
Then one day in 2022 I had something of an epiphany. The previous year I had purchased a ladies 3000 in steel for my wife's birthday and it stopped working. I changed the battery and I think it worked for a little while, or maybe not - I'm not 100% sure, but either way I eventually took it to my watch guy who replaced the movement for me. Since I had bought it for my wife I paid for the new movement myself, and I realised that what had seemed an incredible bargain at £170 had now cost nearer to £400 and that got me thinking.
Suddenly I looked at my sprawling array of F1s as less of a 'collection' and more as a 'liability'. Here were fifteen rather old watches, which somewhat fragile movements I'm guessing given the way the hands tend to stutter when you pull out the crown... what if they start breaking? Save for a select few more expensive ones, most of them cost around the £200 mark, with some having had new glass (at horrendous Timsons prices - over £100!), but given the cost of having a watchmaker replace the movements, these were effectively ticking time bombs waiting to be written off.
Now I realise that if you are handy you can buy watch movements fairly inexpensively and that's fine, if you know what you are doing. But my capabilities begin and end with battery changes, and if I had realised this sooner it would have been all the better for me - but more on that later.
WAV5111 Calibre 8 GMT Grand Carrera
Also in June 2022 another thing happened; I bought my first Grand Carrera. Well, actually no scratch that, my second Grand Carrera. Y'see back in 2018 I bought a WAV5111 Calibre 8 GMT and after about a year I traded it back in for a couple of 2000 Series pieces. At 43mm, with a fairly narrow, plain bezel and HUGE empty dial it just felt way too big, but something kept dragging me back to the Grand Carrera. I really wanted one, but burned by my first dalliance I decided that even though I really wanted a CAV511A chronograph (and should have bought that one in the first place) I would get a 40.5mm Calibre 6 instead.
I honed in on the blue dial Japanese limited edition (300pcs) WAV511J and eventually managed to find one in a shop in Brighton on Chrono 24. Once I got that I wore it day in day out and I started to realise that a) I had too many watches to be able to wear, and b) that I had way too many classic Formula 1s. Because even when I wasn't wearing the gorgeous blue WAV511J I was prioritising my other 'better' watches and leaving the 'plastic', 'too small' F1s in the cupboard.
WAV511J Calibre 6 Japanese Limited Edition
And so I resolved that I need to downsize my collection, which by this time was around sixty pieces all told. Yep, you read that right, I had sixty TAG Heuers. In fact I think the peak was sixty one. Crazy. I mean, just ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, I loved having them, even the crappy ones like the 974.006 that I paid way too much money for one Christmas, but it was totally out of control and owning the Grand Carrera showed me that it would be so much better to sell dozens of watches and maybe buy a few 'better' ones that I could actually wear.
Oddly, despite halving my collection over the next year I don't really miss any of them. Of course I see pictures and think 'Oh I used to have that...' but I don't really get the feeling that I made a mistake or that I want to rebuy any of them. And even when that thought crosses my mind it's usually followed by 'Yes, but you you sold it because a) it was too small, b) it wasn't in good condition, c) you still have something very similar, etc..
CAG7010 SLR Calibre S Lap Timer
I didn't intend to completely rid myself of classic F1s either, at first I sold the ones I didn't like as much and it just kind of snowballed. Then once I saw the money piling up I put more and more on eBay and before I knew it I had decimated the collection, but gained a Grand Carrera Chrono and a Calibre S Lap Timer SLR. By the end of 2023 I only had one classic F1 left, strangely the very first one I had bought - the black/red 383.513.
Earlier this year I decided to try to clean the glass, I mean how hard could it be to remove the crown, take the movement out and clean the glass, then put it all back together? Well... harder than you think actually. I watched a video tutorial and then proceeded to break the crown lever by pressing too hard on the release button. To say I was annoyed would be an understatement. I was really quite miffed. And so it went off to my watchmaker, who serviced and repaired the watch for me and that was supposed to be that.
Until the KITH Heuer thing happened...
I wasn't looking to sell my 383.513. At all. I knew I wouldn't wear it much, but that was okay. I knew it could potentially break and need more than it was really worth spending on it, but that was okay too. I felt it was important to have one classic F1 in my collection since it was the watch that started the whole TAG era of Heuer. But then I noticed that some really crappy watches were fetching some really ridiculous prices on eBay and I began to regret selling my collection the year before.
Yeah, that was annoying, cos instead of breaking even I reckon I could have probably at least doubled my money. And then I thought, just for a laugh I would put my last remaining classic F1 on eBay for a really stupid price. I decided on £900, because I didn't want to sell it anyway, but if someone actually wanted it bad enough then let them have it, right? I can buy it back later when the hype dies down...
As is often the case, despite the asking price I got a couple of low offers, one around £240 and one around £120 IIRC. The guy that offered me £120 actually messaged me to say that this watch originally cost £70 so I should take his 'generous' offer. Yeah, cos that's how it works... haha. What a dumbass. I wonder how much a 1960s Rolex Submariner cost originally? 🤣
I rejected both these offers and thought little more about it. I really didn't expect anyone to offer much more but then I got an offer of £400. That was a little tougher to turn down since it was double what I had paid for it originally. But, still I wasn't really looking to sell the watch, unless I was getting a silly price, so I rejected that as well.
Then I got a much bigger offer, still nowhere near my crazy £900 asking price, but just over £700. For a second I was elated, but then I clocked that the buyer was abroad and they had like one 'feedback'. I really wasn't comfortable selling to them and so I decided to sit on the offer for a day and see if anything else turned up.
The next day I got an offer from a UK based Ebayer, with good feedback. He offered me £550 and so now, having got used to the idea of letting it go, I was torn between the good buyer with the lower offer and the potentially not-so-good, not-UK-based buyer with the higher offer. So I decided to contact the UK based guy and explain the situation. He initially decided not to increase his offer, but then about an hour later he messaged me again and said mine was the best one he'd seen and he didn't want to lose it.
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CL111A F1 Kirium
And so my dear old 383.513 went for £700, roughly £420 more than it had cost me (including the repair). It was kinda sad, but £700 is £700. It's crazy to me that anyone would pay £700 for a watch like that. I mean, I like the old F1 but it just isn't worth that kind of money. I mean you can get a lot of good watches for £700. Damn, you can get an F1 Kirium with a two year warranty for that kinda money! I know which I'd rather have... and it ain't the plastic F1!
And so finally we reach the end of this epic tale. I guess the only question is will I buy a classic F1 again? When the hype dies down.... maybe. But I wouldn't bet on it. I feel like I've done that... to death actually. If I did I'd probably want to buy one that I didn't already own, which doesn't leave a lot. An Ukyo Katayama would be ideal, but I reckon the KITH hype will keep that one high for a very long time and the navy/cream was never that easy to get in the first place. And besides, do I really want a 35mm watch back in my collection? I don't really think I do.
But saying that, my wife still has six or seven of the 28mm models and she was wearing the black and yellow one last night; I must admit I had a tiny pang of regret...
FURTHER READING:
FEATURE: Maybe Don't Try This at Home!
BUYING EXPERIENCE: 383.513 Classic Formula 1
BUYING EXPERIENCE: 385.513 Classic Formula 1
BUYING EXPERIENCE: 380.513 Classic Formula 1
BUYING EXPERIENCE: 382.513 Classic Formula 1
BUYING EXPERIENCE: 375.513 Classic Formula 1
BUYING EXPERIENCE: 381.513 Classic Formula 1
BUYING EXPERIENCE: WA1213 Classic Formula 1
BUYING EXPERIENCE: 384.513 Classic Formula 1
BUYING EXPERIENCE: WA1216 Classic Formula 1
BUYING EXPERIENCE: WA1217 & 371.513 Classic Formula 1s
BUYING EXPERIENCE: WA1210 Classic Formula 1
BUYING EXPERIENCE: 388.513 Classic Formula 1
BUYING EXPERIENCE: 372.513 Classic Formula 1
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