NOT BUYING EXPERIENCE: TAG Heuer Link Calibre S Chronograph

Considering how many watches I've owned over the last ten years (70+ all of which have been TAG Heuers) it's perhaps somewhat remarkable that I've only ever owned one Link. I mean, that's one more than the number of Autavias I've owned... or Monacos... or Monzas, Silverstones, Airlines, Titaniums, 1000 Series or indeed Connecteds. But given how freely available affordable quartz Links are (and have been) on eBay since I got into the hobby it still feels a little odd that I've only owned one. 

That was a Link Searacer that I searched high and low for and eventually found for a bargain price on the H&T website, having dropped from £995 to £750 and finally to £495 (IIRC) when I finally snapped it up. It was an odd watch, which is probably what I liked about it, but for some reason I never really 'loved' it. It was rather bulky somehow and the lack of micro adjustment bothered me as the bracelet was always too tight or too lose and while sometimes I liked its dial, sometimes the weird layout looked kinda ugly. I eventually parted with it for around the same price as I paid for it... so perhaps it wasn't that great of a bargain after all!

NOT BUYING EXPERIENCE: TAG Heuer Ladies Formula 1 Quartz Watch

 

365.508

One of the rarest of the original Formula 1 range is the 365.508 'Raspberry'. It's not impossible to find but more often than not when it does come up it's expensive and usually in less than ideal condition. So I thought I'd hit the jackpot the other day when I found a NOS piece in the original box on eBay for a 'Buy it Now' price of $300 (about £230), but obviously it was never going to be as simple as all that...

The first niggle was that although the seller has a 'shop' with 12 items on sale and a nice little logo, they have absolutely zero feedback. Now I realise that I had zero feedback once too and it didn't mean I wasn't trustworthy, but when the boot is on the other foot and it's your money at risk it doesn't fill you with confidence.

 

But I thought it over and being that I know from experience how biased towards the buyer eBay is, even when they are being unreasonable, I figured I would probably take the risk for the sake of securing this for my wife's Christmas present. 

But then I noticed another problem, that being carriage to the UK was priced at £112, which seemed unfeasibly high for something that weighs practically nothing. So I decided to contact the seller and ask if the postage was correct, dropping into the message that I had recently paid £21 carriage for a similar watch from Japan. 

To be fair, I got a fast, polite response from the seller but the answer was clear, postage to the UK is $180 and that's perfectly normal. Well, maybe it is if you use the most expensive service possible, but hundreds if not thousands of eBay listings suggest it is perfectly possible to send a watch of this value to the UK for less than £30.

But the final twist to this story came when I went back to the listing to write this post, because the seller had ended the listing and relisted it due to 'an error in the listing'. Intrigued, I opened the new listing and saw that postage to the UK was now listed at $22 (£16) but that the item was now an auction with a starting price of $335 (£256) and a Buy it Now price of $440 (£335), which meant if I could win it for the opening bid I would get it delivered for £272 (instead of the original £342), but if I did the 'Buy it Now' it would cost £351. And then of course there's the potential customs charges on top of that. Hmm....

So in the end I think we'll probably wait and see if another one comes along from a seller with a bit more experience, and hopefully a bit closer to home. It's a shame though because the watch itself looks fantastic and I'm sure pieces like this don't come along very often. 

The other thing I should probably do is find out if you can still get the replacement straps from TAG Heuer, because this watch was only available for a year and it would suck to get one and then find that you had to put it on a black strap...

NOT BUYING EXPERIENCE: TAG Heuer 2000 Series Quartz WK1110-1

 

WK1110-1

Where to begin with this one... a while back I did a post about the watches I had sold and whether I regretted my decision or not: one of those was my WK1110-0 which I somewhat missed but was simply not prepared to pay over the odds to get it back. But then I went on eBay and started getting nostalgic for my old 2000 again and this one popped up on my radar at a reasonable price. 

It was being sold on a black leather strap, a Seiko as it turned out, which I didn't mind as I intended to put it on a strap of some kind anyway (I already have one 2000 bracelet sitting in a drawer that I took off my Multigraph because I couldn't get on with it). 

My bid was £246, which was about £100 less than I had sold my old 2000 for, albeit that had a bracelet a rubber strap and a full set of box and papers... but I was fully aware that to buy my old watch back would cost anywhere between £400 and £500 most likely, so I was happy enough with that.

The seller contacted me and told me he would post on Tuesday for Wednesday delivery and sure enough it arrived just as promised. It was only when I took it out of the packaging that it struck me that it didn't look quite right. Not that it looked fake, but it didn't look like my old 2000 and indeed on closer inspection it turned out to be quite different.

My old WK1110-0 had a very matt black dial which I really liked but this one had a shiny black dial with a sunburst effect to it that made it look like there was a smudge on the glass even when there wasn't. It also had a lumed '12' whereas the new model had a polished number without lume, albeit the tritium on my old watch was feeble and this was surprisingly potent. The new one also had a white line around the date window which the old one didn't have, which wasn't a problem but it was another point of difference and I feel like that's why I was a bit disappointed as I had inadvertently bought a watch that was the 'same' as my old one, but not quite the same.

I would have taken it on the chin and maybe grown to love it were it not for the fact that the crown was in dire need of attention. It barely screwed down, there must have been a third of a turn of engagement at best and that was enough for me to start thinking about returning the watch. Thankfully the seller accepted returns and so by the end of the day the watch was in the post and on its way back to the seller.

It's a shame, but a) I've already bought too many watches lately, b) I should've been more careful about getting the exact same watch and c) I'm not sure I actually want to re-buy the watch I had before anyway. Oddly enough I mentioned it on the Calibre 11 forum and one of the members there (Imagwai) said that he had re-bought watches before but always ended up selling them again... 

I have a feeling that he's probably right. In my head I sold this one because at the time I thought it was too small for my wrist, and now that I've got used to wearing smaller watches I thought it would be okay to get it back. But leaving aside the differences to my old one, it just didn't really excite me that much - as much as my memories of it were fond, I have to take into account that I have bought many, many watches since I sold my old WK1110-0 and maybe my collection has moved beyond standard three handed black dial 2000s?

As it was I was already thinking it might like a new bezel and if I'd sent it back to have the crown fixed no doubt it would have had to be serviced as well and it would have cost about £300 to get it right, by which time I've ended up with a £550 watch on a Seiko strap! No, sending it back was definitely the right course of action. Time to move on and forget about the 2000 Series, I've got the Multigraph and that will have to do!

NOT BUYING: TAG Heuer Formula 1 Classic Quartz Watch

375.513

After buying my red/white and black/yellow resin cased Formula 1s off eBay for less than £200 a piece, I came across a Japanese seller (Spirit*Age) who, amongst many other TAG Heuer listings, had two separate auctions listed for this black/green steel cased model. One was missing it's strap and had a starting price of about £140, while the other came complete with boxes and papers, but had a starting price of £180.

Having just ordered a yellow strap for my 380.513, I was in the position of having a spare black strap available to me, so I set my sights on the (I presumed) less popular 'no strap' option. Unfortunately, the other auction finished first... but as it, rather surprisingly, ended without a bid and was immediately relisted I found myself in the ideal position of having it as a back up. 

I bet you can guess the rest of this story, but I'll tell you anyway...

So half an hour before the 'no strap' auction was due to finish there was a sudden flurry of activity (10 bids in fact) which pushed the watch up to nigh on the starting price for the piece with a strap. Well it didn't make sense for me to get involved and push it up even higher, especially when there was another option on the table - so I grumpily watched someone purchase that one and then endured the five day wait to bid on the other one.

With painful inevitability, a day before that one was due to finish it suddenly started attracting interest and by the time it finished it was up around £250, which was more than I wanted to pay, especially as there was a £25 postage charge plus potential import duties from Japan to the UK. Aaaaargh!

And then, just to top it all off... the (potentially spare) black strap on my 380.513 snapped anyway!

How I laughed... 

On reflection, the one with the strap was the much better option, especially as it came complete with an original round, plastic TAG Heuer box, and I do rather wish I'd thrown my hat into the ring there when I had the chance. It also looks in better condition, but at the same time that 'new-looking' bezel should really have green numbers on it, not white.

Still, knowing that I 'could' have purchased the full set for £180 the week previous leaves something of a bitter taste in the mouth...!

NOT BUYING EXERIENCE: TAG Heuer Stopwatch Catalogue

I found this catalogue on eBay a couple of days ago, when the bidding was right down at £5. Stopwatches aren't really my thing, but it still looked like a nice piece of TAG Heuer memorabilia so I watched with an eye to picking it up if it could be had for a sensible price. Unfortunately the auction finished at 8:20PM when I was due to be out with friends so I had to leave a bid about an hour before hand.

The catalogue had already risen to £8.50 when I came to make my bid, and I tentatively entered a figure just above £16. This immediately raised the price to about £18 and I made one final bid of £21, which again merely resulted in pushing the price of the catalogue up.

To be honest I'm not sure I wanted to pay £21 for a stopwatch catalogue, especially with quite a few other items in my watch list... so I wasn't too unhappy and I went out and completely forgot about it until I got home later. It was only then that I realised just how hopelessly hopeful my bids had been...

You may remember a similar situation occurred a few months ago when a 1988 TAG Heuer catalogue appeared on eBay and I couldn't be there to bid on it, that one was really nice and went for over £40 if I remember correctly. I was really disappointed that I missed out on that one and deeply regretted not leaving a higher bid.

So I was rather shocked when I got home to find that the stopwatch catalogue had achieved more than double the price of that very desirable item! £87 it went for... would you believe it?

Just as well I hadn't set my heart on it I guess, I'm just kinda surprised that it made quite that much (or even close to that if I'm honest)... but still I guess like that 1988 catalogue I tried to secure before, these don't come up very often so you have to bid hard when they do. Certainly a lesson learned for me for the future!

NOT BUYING EXPERIENCE: TAG Heuer 1988 Catalogue

Ugh! I'm not going to lie here, I am deeply disappointed. I found this on eBay a couple of days ago when it was bidding at £10.50 and I was more than a little excited. This is the 1988 TAG Heuer catalogue, featuring 183 ring bound pages in seemingly excellent condition... why wouldn't I be excited?

The only problem was it was due to finish at 12:05PM on Sunday, which for me was the worst possible time as I would not be able to bid at the last minute or respond if someone outbid me as I couldn't be near a computer to watch the auction end.

Still I reasoned that if I left a decent bid I would have a fair chance of securing this particular treasure... and so began the awful dilemma of deciding what might be that 'winning' bid?

In hindsight I can see that my bid was too low, and I really should have made a better fist of it - but I have spent a lot of money on catalogues lately. Still, opportunities like this don't come around too often and I wish I had bid more for it.

The bid I left was for £41.33, and when I eventually returned to my computer (about half an hour after the auction had finished) I saw that the catalogue had sold for £42.33.

Galling as that obviously was, who knows exactly how much the 'other guy' was prepared to pay. Maybe he was just as determined as I was, so maybe it's for the best....

Hmm.... (quietly seething)

NOT BUYING EXPERIENCE: TAG Heuer 2000 Sports 'Coke' Quartz Watch

WM1112

A few weeks ago I noticed a blue dial / blue bezel 2000 Sports on FineTime Watches, in fact I think I even wrote a post about it. As is all too often the case with these though, the bezel had some damage, and I believe I mentioned that while it was a nice looking watch I would much prefer the red / black 'Coke' variant. 

Well yesterday for the first time in a couple of weeks (since I bought my last two watches, basically... I've been trying to stay off the site!) I had a browse on eBay and of course the first thing I noticed was this WM1112 2000 Sports bidding at £224 with just a few hours to go

Leaving aside whether buying another watch so soon is a good idea... (of course it is!), critically the bezel and crystal on this one look in good condition and what at first glance looks like a scratch is actually a hair that's been caught in the bezel, so... so far so good. But, what I don't like is that the original bracelet is missing. Yes the watch comes with five straps, a leather one, a rubber one, the shark mesh and two NATO straps. Not crazy about any of them personally but I'd probably have used the rubber one (and chucked the rest of them back on eBay) until I'd sorted ought the proper bracelet...

Actually, I'm not 100% sure but I believe there is a correct, complete bracelet on eBay for £100 O.N.O., which was good, but obviously meant that this needed to be picked up for not much more than the £224 it was going for to make it viable.

I watched the item for the rest of the day (not constantly, I do have better things to do... honest) and when it got to about 30 minutes to go it suddenly jumped up to £249. I did a bit of Googling and came up blank as far as alternative options go, but oddly for a watch that's pretty hard to find, when it has been sold it hasn't exactly set the world on fire. One was sold on eBay for something less than it's £330 asking price a few months back and one sold on MyTAG for £335, so £249 plus £100 for the bracelet less a few quid recouped for the straps... it wasn't leaving much headroom.

But all that said of course, I wanted it. So I crossed my fingers that I'd be able to get the bracelet a bit cheaper and made a bid in the dying seconds of £272.27, but the watch jumped up to £280 and I wasn't inclined (or able) to bid again and so this WM1112 was lost. 

At 37.5mm the watch is a little on the small side, but I still definitely want to add one of these to my collection sooner or later. Of course it would make things a lot easier if I could find it on the original bracelet though (as those other examples I mentioned were). I actually think the seller has been quite smart selling this with a collection of straps, because while they did nothing for me in lieu of the proper bracelet, I'm sure these contributed to the price paid at the end of the auction by whoever won it. I mean, it's entirely possible the buyer doesn't even realise that the original bracelet is missing...

I seem to remember these on eBay a year or two ago for £450 or more, but I'm not quite sure if the prices are actually falling or whether I'm just remembering lots that were overpriced and never would have sold in the first place. I must say I think I'd struggle to pay much over £400, as much as I like the bezel. But make no mistake, it's definitely on my 'list'. 

The 2000 Sports range (made up of three watches: a white dial/black bezel, a blue dial/blue bezel and this black/black-red version) is instantly recognizable, and I can't help but wonder if it wouldn't be possible for TAG Heuer to re-invent this particular version using the quartz Aquaracer as a base and providing the option of either a bracelet or a fitted rubber strap? Could be a good seller for those not willing to stump up for the Calibre 5 Pepsi Aquaracer... or maybe just an interesting limited edition? Maybe I should talk to them about making a T.H.E. Limited Edition? I probably need a few more readers first mind... :)

NOT BUYING EXPERIENCE: TAG Heuer Kirium Quartz

WL111F.BA0701

My name is Rob and I really like Kiriums. There, I said it. It's not the most popular of opinions and some might say nothing to be proud of, but I don't care - my first Swiss watch was a Kirium and so naturally I have a strong bond to the design. As such, I've decided that I would like to add to my small collection of two Kiriums (the top-of-the-range 'F1' Kirium and my mid-blue dial chronograph) and this gorgeous, darker-blue dial three hander really caught my attention on eBay, not least because it started at 99p!

Obviously I wasn't expecting a bargain of epic proportions, especially given the condition of this piece, but I was hopeful I could secure this for a reasonable sum that wouldn't knock the bottom out of my ongoing watch fund. So I did the smart thing and searched eBay for sold listings, this told me that I should expect to pay somewhere between the low £200s up to about £340. Fair enough.

I bid on the watch at about £90 I think, and it slowly crept up every so often until it reached £220 when I stopped bidding. That was Friday afternoon, the listing was due to finish at 8pm that night. Unfortunately my wife wanted me to take her shopping that night, so I had to leave a bid about half an hour before the sale was due to end... not good.

Ah, but I forgot to mention something. Every time I look at a Kirium or another watch that I already own a similar piece, my first task is to compare the number of links in the bracelet to the one I have to see how it compares. I have a largish wrist and it's not unusual for bracelets to be a bit small on me, which obviously adds to the potential cost as I may have to source extra links. 

The listing for this watch said 'the bracelet is quite small at 7" but I will include an extra link', and in fact the same line is used on all this person's listings... which is a bit odd. Looking at the photo I would estimate that this bracelet is actually more like 7.1/2" as it looks to be a half-link shorter than mine. So I contacted the seller to get some clarity on this, because if the watch was being sold as pictured plus one more link, then great, but if he was going to reduce it to 7" and give me a spare link then not so great. It sounds stupid, but watch dealers can be very shady. I also wanted to make sure the spare link had the appropriate collar and pin as well, because without it, it ain't no good! 

Somewhat surprisingly, given the sellers excellent '100%' feedback, I didn't receive a response, which didn't exactly fill me with confidence, but still... by this point I was pretty sold on the watch and I had sourced a couple of spare links for about £16 each if the worst came to the worst. 

So, just before I went out on Friday night I placed my final bid. The watch was sitting at £225 I think, and I reasoned it would definitely go up to nigh on £300, if not more. So to be safe I bid £317, factoring in £8.50 carriage plus a potential £35 for two extra links if necessary, meaning I could be the owner for about £360, which is about £315 less than it would cost to buy a similar piece from Watchfinder...

Incidentally, if you're getting a feeling of deja-vu reading this post, then trust me you're not alone. It wasn't until I started writing this post that I found a post I did about a month ago where I had found a WL111F on eBay, but decided not to bid on it because I was trying to save up for something bigger. That one was a couple of links short and sold for £225.... oh hindsight is a wonderful, wonderful thing, is it not?

So obviously I came back from the shops to find the watch had sold for £325, which was disappointing. In fact I was more disappointed than I expected, because I really thought I had a shot at this one - although I must admit finding that old post cheered me up no end, who's to say there won't be another WL111F for sale soon and maybe that one can be had for low £200s?

As it happens, I found another Kirium on eBay on the Friday night, a silver dial three hander this time, that was bidding in the low £100s and due to finish on Saturday. As there was no mention of the code and no photos of the back, I contacted the seller, because I didn't want to end up buying something that looked like a man's watch but turned out to be a ladies - lesson learned from buying that leather strap S/EL, pictures can be deceiving! I didn't think that was the case but in some of the photos it looked a bit small compared to the barrel case, plus the seller mentioned spare links and I wanted to know how many there were.

Glad I contacted the seller, they told me the watch said WL1111-0 on the caseback, which either means the seller misread the code, the watchback is off another watch or... well, who knows. A WL1111-0 should have a grey dial, not a silver one. As it happens, the watch sold for £259, which I wouldn't have paid anyway, so not a big problem! 

NOT BUYING EXPERIENCE: TAG Heuer Link 'Searacer' Regatta Chronograph

CT1113.BA0550

This is a disappointing tale... I wasn't going to buy anything else for a while, I was going to be good and save for something special. But you know how it is, you start looking on eBay and something catches your eye, the price looks good, maybe a little too good... 

This one was bidding at less than £300, albeit it hadn't hit its reserve price, and it had a buy it now of £495. Checking around I could see this going for over £495, in fact I could see it going up around £600 (if not more) and I knew that as soon as someone hit the reserve the buy it now price would disappear. The price climbed up to £319 and still hadn't hit the reserve and I figured £495 was a good price, sure it might go for less, but £495 was a good price and I didn't want to lose this one - so I took it. 

But before I did I contacted the seller to establish that everything worked okay and that he had all the extra links for the bracelet. This was important because in the picture it was clear that the owner had a very small wrist - indeed I couldn't even get this over my hand when it arrived.

So two days later I get my post and there it is. The box and barrel case were in excellent shape, and the watch itself... well, it wasn't pristine, it had clearly been well worn, but the glass was scratch free.  I figured I'd be quite happy to spend a little more to send it off for polishing and have it looking perfect again.

The watch felt great, I've always had a not so great feeling about Links in general, but this one looked and felt great. It's a nice size and weight, it's certainly not light and feels quite chunky. Obviously I couldn't get it on my wrist, but I was surprised how substantial it felt actually. I really loved the dial, it really is pretty damned cool and the Regatta function itself is pretty badass too. Not that I would ever have a use for it of course, but really... who cares about that?

The booklet that came with the watch wasn't overly helpful it must be said, and looking on the internet for assistance didn't produce much of worth. But after I played with it a bit I figured it out, and the Regatta function did seem to work just fine. The function is a countdown of ten minutes which then initiates the chronograph to time your race, pretty clever stuff... except when you revert back to chrono mode the hands didn't reset to 12 like they should.

So I figured, okay, I've been here before... watches in the post get dropped, so I pulled out the crown to reset the chrono. Well I got the second hand to reset but that was it, heaven knows how you're supposed to reset the other hand. I contacted the seller, but he had no idea how the watch worked, he'd never used it other than as a time telling tool, so that was a dead end.

And then I noticed something else, that being that the 1/10th of a second hand had not moved once since I'd picked the watch out of the box. Clearly something was awry. My Kirium chrono was all over the place when I got it, with every hand knocked off centre, but the 1/10th subdial still moved, this one was stuck at 4. I checked the photos on the auction and sure enough the 1/10th hand was stuck at 4. 

This was enough for me to call time. The seller offered me a £100 discount, but I didn't think it was worth letting myself in for a potentially big bill. Being quartz there's every chance it would need the movement replacing, so I figured that even though it was tempting, it was a bad idea. It's such a shame as well because I really liked the watch, and I kinda want to hunt another one down - preferably in a lot better condition and working properly, obviously. I know it will cost more money, but I think it will be worth it, this is a very cool looking watch.

My only slight niggle is the bracelet, I can't comment on the comfort as I couldn't try it on, but Links are notoriously comfortable. What I didn't like so much was that the first two links are one size and then it jumps down to a smaller size link for the rest of the bracelet, which I thought looked a bit weak. I realise it would have cost more to make, but it would be nice if there was more of a gradual taper to the bracelet. Not a deal breaker, I'm sure I would have gotten used to it. Just an observation really.

Wristshot taken on my friend Rich's wrist (6.1/2")

Sadly the watch has been returned now, so I'll have to start looking for a replacement. No rush though, I need to rebuild my TAG fund a little. I do think I'm done with buying the cheaper, older models now though. I've got a good selection of interesting older pieces, I think now it's time to be more selective and get some higher quality pieces into the collection. Interestingly EST1897 have one of these for £995, which bears out my opinion that this was a great price - but only if it had worked properly, what a shame it didn't.

NOT BUYING EXPERIENCE: TAG Heuer S/EL Chronograph

CG1110-0

About three/four weeks ago I decided to look for a S/EL again, and this time I wanted to get myself one. After the disappointment of losing the CG1110-0 that Watchfinder had on their site for just £400, I was determined not to lose out again, and so I came across this beauty on 'Birth Year Watches' website.

The asking price was £599, and the watch looked to be in generally good condition - however in their description 'BYW' noted that there was a scratch on the glass, so I contacted them to enquire if they could replace the glass for me, and if so I would buy the watch. 'BYW' came back to me promptly and said they could do so and they would charge £30, which I was more than happy with. However, there was one slight snag, that being it would take a week to get the glass and moreover their watchmaker was going on holiday the week after, so it would probably take a couple of weeks to get the watch to me. No problem, I've been waiting ages anyway, so a couple more weeks wasn't going to kill me.

After about two and half weeks I fired over a quick email to 'BYW' asking if the watch was getting close to being ready, and got a prompt response from Scott, telling me that the glass had come in and that they should be able to send it out that afternoon or failing that the next day. Happy days!

But then the next day I got another email, apparently the glass didn't fit, and it wasn't the first one they'd tried either. So the only other option was to get one from TAG Heuer (if they would supply a dealer) or there was a place in the USA that had one but they wanted $60 carriage... the curse of the S/EL strikes again.

Not only that, but in the process of trying to fit the glass they had discovered that there was a problem with the movement whereby if you move the minute hand backwards the hour hand didn't follow and the only option was a replacement (non TAG branded) movement. BYW offered to sell me the watch as it was (with the scratched crystal and defective movement) for £399 which is fair enough... the scratch probably wouldn't bother a lot of people and they might never even notice the problem with the hands - or if they did they might be prepared to live with it, but for me it was a deal breaker.

I definitely didn't want the hassle of trying to secure a glass myself, and knowing the movement had an issue would bug me too, so in the end I decided to pass on the watch and get a refund. It was a real shame as I really liked the model and I felt sorry for Scott who now has a problem watch on his hands, but sometimes it's just best to walk away.

Oddly enough, there was another S/EL I was looking at when I decided to go for this one, and while I was waiting for the CG1110 to arrive I started looking at that one again and began wondering if I'd made the right choice.... more on that in a day or two!