Well I guess this had an air of inevitability about it didn't it? Delighted as I was with my last purchase (my Aquaracer Regatta Calibre S, way back in... January) it clearly also reignited a desire in me to finally pick up that WL511A Kirium chronometer I've wanted for I don't know how long. But of course, I couldn't find one and the ones I did find with 'SOLD' on them seemed to go for more than I really wanted to pay... considering, you know, I already have three Kiriums. So, deeply disappointed, I saved my eBay search and waited for the email.
Well I didn't have to wait long, just a week or two passed and then there it was, looking mighty fine and starting cheap at £199, which would have been awesome, but highly unlikely. So I debated... should I place a bid at £199 to stop anyone using the £400 'BUY IT NOW' feature, or should I just buy it now myself?
There was a wrinkle, the seller was honest enough to say that the watch might need a service as if worn for several days it lost a little time. Since I rarely wear any watch for more than two days at a time this probably wasn't going to be a massive issue for me, but I contacted him to establish a more accurate understanding of the issue. He said it loses a second or two a day, but sometimes overnight it loses more, maybe even a minute. In the meantime I contacted my watch repair man and asked for a quote to do a complete service. He came back with £350, hmm... okay then.
In hindsight, of course, I can see the smart thing to do would have been to bid £199 and hope for the best. But of course, that's not what I did. Over-excited at the possibility of finally getting my hands on this long sought after watch I contacted the seller and agreed to pay £375 for it. I know, I know. What a dumbass. I can see this now, of course... but trust me, the worst is yet to come!
Things started well, the seller sent the watch on the Monday (I bought the watch on a Sunday) and sure enough it turned up on the Tuesday. But it kinda went downhill from there. For a start the crown had about one thread left on it and so getting the crown to engage and screw down was a nightmare, but once you got the knack you could get it to stay.
Awesome!
Next I couldn't get the watch to start, I wound it and shook it, but it would not start. Then it started and stopped after about five seconds. I did eventually get it to go and then it seemed okay. I was a bit annoyed by now, but all of this was solvable if I was willing to invest £350 in the watch... the big problem was that I wasn't.
You see, in my excitement I had forgotten to check one vital detail (which to be fair wasn't mentioned in the eBay listing), the case size. Foolishly I had assumed the watch was 38mm like the three Kiriums I already owned, and not 36mm like the three-handed Kirium I used to own - but sold because it was too small.
Annoyingly, this even occurred to me while I was waiting for the watch to arrive and I visited SW Watches who had previously sold a WL511A and their website falsely reassured me that the watch measured 38mm without the crown (subsequently I also discovered that the product page for the WL511A page on the Watchfinder website also says the watch is 38mm!)
Needless to say the WL511A actually measures a paltry 36mm and is too damned small for my 7.1/2" wrist. It might measure 38mm across the case if you include the crown guard and the Patekesque case bulge on the left, yes, but that is not how you measure a watch case. If only I had noticed that the SW Watches listing also mentioned a 26mm dial width... but the watch was already bought anyway, and the seller did not accept returns so I was well and truly f**ked either way!
So I spent Tuesday night sulking and cursing my stupidity... after all, am I not the 'TAG Heuer Enthusiast'? Should I not be way beyond rookie mistakes like this? Well, yes... and yes. How embarrassing. I can only put it down to the fact that it's so long since I bought anything from eBay that in the meantime I lost some of my hard earned street-smarts. Sigh...
So. What to do? I decided my best course of action would be to test the watch in my watchwinder so that I could attempt to sell it on myself, I didn't hold out much hope of recouping my entire outlay but I hoped for maybe £250 or so.
Well the watch ran for 24 hours and lost twelve seconds, and then the second day it stopped altogether. Clearly this was not in a saleable condition and I started to reassess my options.
Servicing the watch to sell was one option of course, but I didn't really want to invest £725 in a watch that might struggle to reach £600 even with a brand new service. So all I could really hope for was to sell the watch as 'Spares and Repairs' but this would clearly impact the amount I could hope to realise.
After much grumbling I eventually decided to contact the seller and request a return on the grounds that the watch was 'defective'. I had accepted the watch wasn't perfect and I was happy to live with it if it was usable, but clearly it wasn't as usable as I thought and I couldn't hope to sell it as it was, so I thought my request was reasonable.
To his credit the seller was open to discussion, and though he disagreed with my evaluation of the condition he clearly didn't want the watch back either and we eventually agreed on a partial refund which would enable me to sell the watch, either as it was or piecemeal to recoup the £200 I ended up paying.
Which I guess wasn't too bad an outcome, I mean £200 is nothing in the watch world, some of my watch straps cost more than that! But still, I hate losing money... especially when it's through my own stupidity and I was also very disappointed that my dream of owning another cool looking Kirium was over.
Once that was resolved and I received the refund I put the watch back on eBay with a starting price of £200. After a couple of days someone offered me £167 and I talked them up to £185, so I ended up losing about £25 in all, not the end of the world and I guess at least I got to see a WL511A close up (and now know that sadly it's not for me).
Famous last words and all that, but maybe now it's time to quit eBay for good. That was a lucky escape really, it could have turned out a lot worse... and it all went wrong really because of my presumption that the watch was 38mm when in reality it was 36mm.
I have to say though, the dial is a beautiful shade of blue, but the reflections on the watch are an absolute nightmare. The polished indexes look great, but if you can see them then there's probably a reflection on the glass that means it's hard to read. Alternatively, if you can see the dial then the indexes are dark... so honestly it's pretty but pretty useless!
Ah well, it's over now... let's just pretend that my last purchase was the Aquaracer Calibre S Regatta!
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