While it's a noble endeavour of mine to try to turn my rather large collection of (mostly) cheaper TAG Heuers into a smaller collection of 'less cheaper' TAG Heuers, it does rather take the fun out of the experience. Sure I was a little slow to cotton on to the fact that watches are not inanimate objects and they are liable to break and need repairing, but sometimes I really miss those heady days of 2019-2022 when every other month brought at least one new Ebay bargain to my door. Sigh...
Now, having sold approximately half of my collection, I have used most of that money to buy some nicer watches like my Grand Carrera Caliper Calibre 36, my Grand Carrera Chronograph Calibre 17, my SLR Calibre S and my Aquaracer Solargraph and I don't regret doing that, however I still get the urge to buy 'something cheaper' now and again. Truthfully, spending big money* on watches is still not something I am really comfortable doing, and since I only really like one watch brand most of the things I end up looking at are usually variations of things I already own or things that are still a bit out of my comfort-zone price-wise, even when pre-owned.
*My idea of 'big money' being anything over £2000 honestly...
So with reluctance I inevitably ended up returning to eBay and the first thing that caught my eye was an 'Alec Monopoly' F1. Not the more common second one with the white dial background, but the much cooler and very collectible black-dial one (200 pieces). This was on sale in Japan, with free shipping to the UK. But it had a starting price of 99p... and as much as I want to believe it was genuine, there was no way I was going to bid on it.
Sure, it ended up selling for £560, which was possibly the best deal I've ever walked away from... but more likely it was a fake. After all, these watches usually sell for at least £2000 and I've seen them on sale for £4000... I mean, it stands to reason that someone would realise sooner or later that they already have the fake 'base watch', all they needed to do was fake the dial and the backplate and there you go.
And oddly enough, I just looked at eBay and there are two more available, both pretty cheap and both located in Bulgaria. Considering there were only 200 pieces in the first place and most of those have probably been bought by Alec Monopoly collectors, this seems suspicious to say the very least.
It's such a shame that now every 'great deal' has to be viewed with suspicion. There are so many cool watches out there that I'd like to buy and it pisses me off that you just can't, because you know there's such a high probability of ending up with a fake. At least you're relatively safe buying watches from the pre 2010 era, and even safer buying 80s and 90s watches... but I've been there and done that*.
*Doesn't categorically mean I won't do it again though.... 🤣
And then I had a thought... what else can you buy with zero worries? Calibre S watches! Cos there ain't no way that fakers are getting hold of that movement. The Calibre S wasn't some ETA that TAG Heuer rebranded as their own, it was a totally bespoke electro-mechanical movement, which coincidentally I already own in two different formats (Calibre S in my yellow Aquaracer and Calibre S Laptimer in my SLR).
So I decided to search Ebay for TAG Heuer Calibre S watches and came up with a few options, not least of which was the Aquaracer Calibre S Regatta (which you might possibly remember was Shane Paradis #1 pick in his 'TOP 10 Aquaracers' post last year). I always liked the look of this one and I don't have the Regatta version of the Calibre S, so this piqued my interest.
The watch was available in blue or black (and also in a special 'China Team' version), but I've always preferred the blue and since I seem to have sold the majority of the blue watches I once owned I naturally gravitated towards that one. But sadly, whereas I expected to pick one up for maybe £800-900 it seemed that good ones started at way over £1000; so really not the 'cheap' fix I was hoping for! But despite that the photos looked damned nice... and I felt myself warming to the idea.
There was one available for £600 (on a crappy looking strap to boot) but the description said 'the little hand on the left won't reset' so £600 was probably too much... who knows what problems could arise there. Add in that I would need a bracelet (gotta be £200) and it would be cheaper to buy one of the good ones I'm sure!
But still, I really didn't want to spend over a grand as this was eating too much into my watch fund, which is reserved for those 'better' watches I was supposed to be collecting these days, you know... like that elusive Carrera Date 160 in blue that I want one day.
Speaking of which, I found one of those the other day on the 'Cash Converters' website of all places. I think I might have found this before, but it was some time ago so if I did it's clearly not selling. It's fairly cheap(ish), but it does have a ding in the case and I just can't quite get my head around buying a watch like that at that sort of money from 'Cash Converters'.
Apparently they do give you a twelve month warranty, but I just don't feel like its the place to buy watches of that value somehow. I'm no snob, but I'd rather not buy a watch like that from somewhere that also sells second hand rowing machines and DVDs for 10p.... besides they don't exactly have a glowing record for customer service and I think I would forever be worried that it was fake or stolen, so really not worth it. I mean how the hell did a watch like that even end up there?
But I digress (as usual), so where were we? Oh yes, I was trying to find a 'cheap' blue Calibre S Regatta Aquaracer on eBay, but there was nothing doing and I wasn't going to pay £1200 for one, even if I didn't have to stress about the authenticity... and besides, there was still the issue of the watch working properly, since clearly many sellers don't even know how to reset the hands (as evidenced by the pictures) how can they honestly say it 'works properly'?
So, with a heavy heart I resigned myself to not buying anything after all. But no sooner had I done that than a blue CAF7110 Calibre S Regatta Aquaracer popped up on Watchfinder, and at a rather enticing £925! Hmm, now we're talking. But then again £925 was still quite a chunk to take out of my 'better' watch fund, so I left it overnight to sink in. As it stood the website was only showing 'stock images' and I really wanted to see if they uploaded photos of the actual watch before I made a decision.
The next day the watch was still for sale, but they were still showing stock photos. However I was starting to wonder how long the watch would sit there at that price and began to mull over how much I actually wanted to pay. After all, the listing had a 'Make an Offer' button, so why not use it? I settled on £850 and I was just about to make my offer when fate intervened and an email from Watchfinder appeared in my inbox...
If you are familiar with Watchfinder, you probably know that they quite often do these offers where you can take £250 off the price but it's usually defined in price bands, so it's something like £250 off for watches over £2000, then £500 for watches over £5000 and so on.... but this didn't say anything, just take £250 off any TAG Heuer, Omega, Cartier or Breitling. Which is a bit odd really because £250 off a cheap TAG Heuer is a lot more useful than £250 off a £30,000 Omega!
To be honest, I wasn't hopeful. I really couldn't see them letting me apply this code to the watch I wanted to buy, but I noticed they had removed all the really cheap stuff from the website so there was only one way to find out. I put the Aquaracer in the basket and keyed in JAN250... and well, what do you know, the price dropped to £675! There was no way I was not buying this now... after all, if I really didn't like it when it arrived I could send it back.
While I was waiting for the watch to arrive, I felt like I kind of had the 'affordable' watch bug again and I started looking for a WL511A Kirium. I've been looking for one of these on and off for years, but never followed through. They used to be quite easy to find, but now (of course) all I can find is listings for ones that have already been sold. The good news is that even a beautiful example was only up for £625 (at SWW Watches, which seems like an absolute steal for an immaculate looking chronometer) so if one day I do find one at least it shouldn't break the bank.
Watchfinder advised a ten day lead time for my Aquaracer, but after five days I received an email telling me the watch had been dispatched and sure enough DHL turned up at my house the next day with it. As I had never seen a CAF7110 in person before I was a little apprehensive about how it would actually look. Video and photos gave the impression of a shiny, sunburst blue dial, but the render looks flat, lifeless and dull... thankfully upon opening the box I was more than pleased with how it looked!
There's a distinct air of classiness about it, and dare I say it even a hint of Omega Seamaster 300 too (due to the combination of round bezel insert and bihexagonal steel bezel). You might remember I previously owned a WAB series Aquaracer, again blue but with a yellow second hand. Ultimately I decided to sell that because to me it looked too much like a 60s inspired design... too Submarineresque and not Aquaracer (or even 2000) enough. This one manages to combine a bit of both but without stepping into retro territory, a big thumbs up there. The sunburst dial is stunning and I love the small touches of red on the hands, bezel and dial.
I have previously seen (and posted here) a video of this 'Regatta' chronograph in action, but I had forgotten quite how it worked... so while I wasn't surprised when the minute hand moved to the '10' position to begin the ten minute countdown I was a little surprised when the second hand started moving backwards! I can't really see any great 'need' for this, but it's very cool... and as expected when the hands have completed their ten minute countdown the small hand moves back to the 'Chronograph' setting and the chronograph automatically begins timing the race.
*I don't have a manual but I believe you can set this countdown to any number of minutes, because when I got the watch it was only counting down from 2 minutes, which I thought was odd because my other regatta timers have both had ten minute countdowns!
From standard operation, you depress the crown once to enter chronograph mode and twice to enter 'Regatta' mode. However if you operate the chronograph and then stop it, you need to press the crown twice to return to standard mode as it will first take you into 'Regatta' mode. I guess this makes sense, though at first it seems a bit odd as I'm used to my standard Calibre S which only has two modes to switch between. The other thing to note is that this Calibre S is only a 1/10th of a second chronograph whereas the non-Regatta version is a 1/100th chronograph. Which is not a big problem for me I must say!
Even though it is a 42mm case, which some think of as being rather large, it wears surprisingly well and with its smooth rounded bezel feels much less bulky on the wrist than a 43mm Aquaracer with a steel bezel. I could easily imagine this being someone's 'only' watch, as you could happily wear this with a suit, or equally any casual wear. Technically you can't dive with it though, because despite its 300M water resistance rating it doesn't have a lume pip on the bezel.
It's quite interesting to compare this one with my yellow dial CAF7013, both Calibre S Aquaracers of a similar time period but surprisingly different in looks and feel... but this post is already way too long so I think I'll leave that for another day.
So far I'm very happy with my purchase, it's only been just over 24 hours since I opened the box and only a few hours since I adjusted the bracelet to fit my wrist properly. The clasp is perhaps a little 'tired' but it still feels secure enough (the CAF7110 predates the CAF7013 and features the old style fold-over clasp instead of the push button version found on the later model). The Calibre S movement seems to work perfectly and the hands are lined up well (bit of a common fault with Calibre S watches).
Now obviously, you could ask why I bought this when it never made my top ten Aquaracer list... wouldn't it have made sense to buy one of the two models on there that I don't already own (leaving aside the two ladies models I included of course, which my wife already owns)? Well that's a fair question... and honestly, again it really came down to opportunity, price and confidence in authenticity.
The other two watches in my Aquaracer list would have cost significantly more than this did and I really wasn't looking to spend that kind of money. Even if I hadn't received the £250 voucher from Watchfinder before I had bought this one I am sure I would have been pretty happy to have paid £925 (or whatever we managed to agree on below that), but at £675 this is an absolute bargain, perhaps one of my best buys ever!
And you know, with new watch prices getting ever more out of hand (well over £4000 for the latest F1 Calibre 16...!) it's honestly nice to know that I can continue to get my TAG Heuer fix without first applying a quantity of lubricant and bracing myself against a solid surface. Yes this isn't the 'latest and greatest' but I really don't care, I'm not out to impress anyone and honestly what can this sort of money actually buy you in the current market?
Perhaps I just have to acknowledge that I'm back where I was 8 years or so ago, as an extremely unlikely customer for brand new products, but still interested and happier picking up other people's leftovers once they've taken the depreciation hit. Because judging by the state of the used market, I don't see how these constant price rises are sustainable long term. When you can save £1700 on a one year old glassbox Carrera buying pre-owned, that's kinda crazy...
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