BUYING EXPERIENCE: TAG Heuer Formula 1 'Classic' Quartz Ladies Watch

 

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Now that my wife has fallen for the charms of the classic Formula 1 watches (as have I of course), her enthusiasm for acquiring more of varied colours shows no sign of abating. There are three or four models she would like to add; the black/yellow being one, the shocking pink another and the two tone navy/baby blue is also in the running... last but not least is this light grey/pink model which she's been after for a while. Bizarrely I managed to find four examples on eBay over the course of two days, which is just plain odd if you ask me!

Two of those were being offered by sellers based in Japan, which raises the question of import taxes (I'm actually in the process of buying a Formula 1 from Japan myself, but as yet it hasn't arrived)... but as there were two available in the UK it didn't seem necessary to over-complicate things!

Annoyingly, I found one of the UK listings before the one I eventually bought and it needed a new strap and a new battery, (I've never bought a watch off eBay that needs a new battery, because that is a gamble... they say it needs a new battery, but is that all there is to it? Maybe it's true, if so how long has that dead battery been inside the watch? Has it leaked and trashed the movement?) but since I own several of these and have changed the batteries in them myself I reasoned that it was probably a risk worth taking and I know the strap is only £32, so...

The watch was an auction with a starting price of £149.99; hard to find it may be in this colour scheme (although with two for sale in Japan, clearly not as rare as was first thought!) but I reasoned that with no battery and a broken strap the seller might be prepared to let it go at a much better price, so I made an offer of £115. The seller didn't respond and I thought it might be a good idea to find out more in case I wanted to bid higher so I contacted the seller and asked them if they knew when they battery had died. Admittedly it would have been smarter to ask this before making my low bid, but there you are... we all do stupid things on eBay!

The seller said they had no idea, but it was quite a long time.... which worried me, but I had already made an offer so I had to hope it would expire and I could forget it and move on.

Irritatingly the next afternoon I found the one I eventually ended up buying with a 'Buy it Now' price of £149, this one had a complete strap but also a dead battery! Again I contacted the seller to enquire about the deadness of the battery and this time I was told it had been a couple of months (so let's assume 3-6 months)... but of course, my offer on the other listing hadn't quite expired so I had to sit on it for a few more hours or risk ending up with two grey/pink F1s!

Thankfully the offer eventually expired and I was free to buy this one. It came a few days later, packaged in a TAG Heuer service case and looked in superb condition - but even so I was nervous about it until I unscrewed the back and saw a pristine movement, completely untarnished by battery acid! Luckily I had the 377 battery required in stock and once changed the watch sprang into life and has been ticking away nicely ever since.

My wife will be getting this for our 27th wedding anniversary in a couple of weeks time (she does know that, but she hasn't seen it yet), I'm sure she will be over the moon with it as it really is quite pretty and in extremely good condition for its age.

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer Aquaracer 'Amami Oshima' Limited Edition

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While researching the 'One Piece' Aquaracer limited edition box set I wrote about the other day, I somehow managed to stumble onto an article about this new 'Amami Oshima' Aquaracer which is due to be released in the next few days. Truthfully I had never heard of 'Amami Oshima' but it's clear from the dial that this is another Aquaracer destined to be sold in a holiday destination and on cruise ships, and there's nothing wrong with that in my book. Indeed, I was most taken with a 'Hawaii' Aquaracer I saw in Bicester Village a few months back which featured an island and a turtle on the dial and a cool palm tree engraving on the back (unfortunately I can't find a picture of the back of this watch at present).

So, according to Google, 'Amami Oshima' is the largest island in the Amami archipelago between Kyushu and Okinawa, and is one of the Satsunan islands. It covers about 700 square kilometers and has a population of approximately 73,000 people. The island is of volcanic origin and as such is very lush, the climate is described as 'humid and subtropical' and it's main industries are agriculture, fishing and the distillation of Shochu, which is a spirit made from rice. The other main economical activity of the island is tourism - hence this Aquaracer.

The WBD2117 is 41mm in diameter, so it's the smaller of the two current Aquaracer cases and it houses the regular Calibre 5 automatic movement. This model is limited to 500 pieces and will cost 280,500Yen. There is also a ladies version...

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This is much the same as the men's variant, but smaller at 27mm in diameter and rather than an automatic movement this one carries a quartz module. Again this is limited to 500 pieces and is priced at 170,500Yen.

I guess there's not too much more to add, perhaps I should do a post about the various 'Island' themed watches TAG Heuer have released over the years, as there are quite a few of them now.

25th Wedding Anniversary Trip to Switzerland (including the TAG Heuer Museum)

It must be said, I'm not a natural traveller. I really don't like flying, it's not that I'm scared or nervous I just don't like the whole idea of it... but my wife has been trying to get me to go abroad for a while, and particularly to return to Switzerland where we previously had an excellent holiday in Zurich. In fact it was the best holiday we've ever had, and pretty much the only place that I've been that I would go back to...

But I was reluctant, because after all, I hate flying. I also hate leaving my two cats Mr Biver and Ming, but... well, this October is our 25th wedding anniversary and so I kind of thought maybe I should do the right thing. We didn't want to go back to Zurich for fear that it might not be as good the second time around, so we decided instead to visit Geneva.

One great thing about Geneva is that it is within a two hour train journey of Gruyeres, and this was a significant sweetener for me because apart from cheese Gruyeres also has one other major attraction - the HR Giger Museum.

If you're not aware of who HR Giger was (he sadly died in 2014), his main claim to fame (aside from his legendary body of dark, twisted biomechanical art) was designing the Xenomorph creatures and derelict spaceship for the film 'Alien' in 1979, but he was also responsible for album covers for Emerson Lake and Palmer, Debbie Harry and Swiss Avant-Garde Metal band Celtic Frost (among others...) and design work for Jodorosky's abandoned 'Dune' project (which was set to feature Salvador Dali) Incidentally, there is a fascinating documentary about Jodorosky's 'Dune' which is well worth a watch if you are interested.

There is also a 'Giger Bar' next door, which is decorated in the style of Giger's artwork, with incredible chairs and bones lining the vaulted ceilings.

So this was all planned and then a few days ago, my wife suggested that I put on the Calibre11 forum that we were going to Geneva, and did anyone have any suggestions of things to see there, possibly 'watch related' but really anything that we might otherwise have missed.

It was at this point that David from Calibre11 suggested that we might like to travel to La Chaux de Fonds and visit the TAG manufacture. I didn't realise this was possible, since the Museum is not generally open to the public, but David very kindly made arrangements for me and a few days ago I received an email from TAG Heuer confirming our visit this coming Wednesday and asking if there was anything we particularly wanted to see.

Needless to say this seems slightly surreal right now, but obviously we are both very excited to be invited and it certainly makes the thought of flying a lot more palatable for me! Since our anniversary isn't actually until October, I've decided to let my wife have her 'Swiss 150 Years Anniversary' Aquaracer a couple of weeks early so that she can wear it for the holiday, it seems only fitting since it has the text 'Geneva' on the dial and every time she wears this in the future it will be reminder of what promises to be a spectacular holiday.

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For my part I can't quite decide which watch I should take. Part of me wants to take my Heuer01, but I also kind of think I ought to take my Grand Carrera GMT, since who knows when the next time I'll 'need' a GMT complication on a watch will be? But then again, maybe I should wear my much loved and still mint F1 Kirium, which was my first TAG way back in 2004 - after all, that was where this whole crazy journey started... I guess I'll have to decide tomorrow morning!