ON THE WRIST: TAG Heuer Carrera Dato 45 160th Anniversary Heuer 02 Chronograph

CBN2A1E.BA0643

Selfridges / London, 15th September 2021

Honestly the 44mm Carrera Heuer 02 Dato 45 160th Anniversary Limited Editions never really made the same impact on the watch scene as the 39mm Heritage Carrera Heuer 02 'Silver' 160th Anniversary Limited Edition or the 39mm Heritage Carrera 'Montreal' Heuer 02 160th Anniversary Limited Edition did they? 

Like those two fantastically lauded watches the two Carrera Dato 45s (let's just stick with that shall we or we'll be here until Christmas!) which came later on in 2020 were both released as limited editions of 1860 pieces and came either in a blue/white colour scheme or a white/black option (although whether that white is actually silver is open to debate). I still haven't seen the white/silver/black one and it's taken almost a year for me to come across the blue version, but boy am I glad I did! 

ON THE WRIST: Breitling Exospace B55 Chronometer

VB5510H2/BE45-235E

Selfridges / London, 9th March 2019

I've long admired Breitling's ani/digi watches, and indeed it was probably the root of my decision to buy my TAG Heuer Chronotimer, which offered a similar combination dial at a fraction of the cost. Still, it was nice to finally get my hands on one of Breitling's 'Superquartz' pieces and I certainly went big here with the Exospace B55. Measuring a whopping 46mm, the Exospace B55 has a lot of wrist presence, rather too much really, even for my substantial 7.3/4" wrist. This measures just 1mm larger than my Carrera Heuer 01 Skeleton but it feels a whole step bigger. I guess the blue strap probably doesn't help matters, although I quite liked it, I must admit I'd prefer a black one. 

Unfortunately I was served by an absolute tool of a salesman, and I think that's maybe why I've left it so long to review this piece. Clearly it's not Breitling's fault that the guy working in Selfridges presents their company in a bad light, and I have to say that my experiences in the Breitling boutique on Bond Street have been very positive. Unfortunately that means that my memories of the day are somewhat vague, and in truth I didn't actually have the watch on for all that long.

I do remember being somewhat disappointed that the watch isn't as 'black' as I'd hoped. It actually has a gun-metal grey kind of look, which I'm not sure really goes with the blue rubber strap, but still, each to their own. Actually, thinking about it more, a black strap would make the case look even lighter so that's probably not the answer either. Maybe white would work best? If Roger Dubuis and Richard Mille can do white rubber straps, then why not? Hmm, probably not now, since Breitling are consciously moving towards being a more 'conservative/backwards' looking company.

This, on the other hand, is a very forward looking and technical watch, with a perpetual digital calendar, a flyback 1/100th of a second chronograph (not really sure how you can have a flyback digital chronograph though...), seven daily alarms, a countdown timer, countdown/count-up clock, bluetooth connectivity and more. The watch also features a ratcheting, bi-directional bezel marked with simple minutes.

In addition to it's fairly epic size, it's also relatively (if not outlandishly) thick at 15.25mm, which means that you certainly won't forget you're wearing it even though as it's made of titanium it's not especially heavy. All in all it's a hell of a thing, but I can't honestly say I was reluctant to give it back to the salesman. Truthfully, while the Chronotimer isn't as 'impressive' overall, it has more than enough digital capability for me and still has a great deal of wrist presence due to it's chunky case and mirror finished, skeletonised hands. 

Then there's the price, the Breitling Exospace B55 is not a cheap watch at £6710 (I believe it was £6300 back in March so there must have been quite a price hike in the meantime!) and bearing in mind you could easily pick up a mint pre-owned Chronotimer for less than a grand on eBay, well... it's a hard one to justify for me.

Obviously the Exospace B55 isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, and I'm sure it appeals to a certain specific kind of customer, I just hope Breitling don't go so far down the retro-road that they start shutting down these avenues to concentrate wholly on mechanical movements and endless variations on the Navitimer; because while I could find better things to spend £7k on, I'm kinda glad that this exists.

ON THE WRIST: Rolex Yachtmaster Blue Dial 116622

116622

Selfridges / London, 9th March 2019

Hard to believe it may be, but until today I'd never tried on a Rolex. Never been particularly bothered either... and these days, it's pretty much impossible to try on most of the popular models as there just isn't any available stock anywhere. But I was a man on a mission today, I wanted to try on as many watches as possible and top of the list were Rolex and Hublot. Hublot is easy, plenty of Hublot stock around, chuck a stone in London and you'll hit a decent Hublot, Rolex on the other hand...

But actually, dredging through a sea of two-tone, undersized and generally ugly looking watches, I lucked into finding what is surely the nicest looking Rolex I have ever seen. I'm not too familiar with Rolex ways of doing things, but I vaguely remembered that a blue dial meant something, and looking at the watch in the cabinet I came to the conclusion that it meant the watch was white gold.

As it turns out, that wasn't the case. The case is actually Rolesium (Rolex's own blend of stainless steel and platinum, with it's own super tacky brand name!), but the bezel is 950 platinum, which means the watch retails for £8900 instead of the £20,000+ I was kind of expecting, and no Rolex do not put prices next to the watches in their boutique cabinets. The lady who served me was very nice and she told me that the watch had only come in the day before and that it would probably not be around for very long. Of course, this could be sales banter, but knowing Rolex I think her words were genuine enough. It's certainly the Rolex I would buy.

It's almost the Rolex TAG might make, with a gorgeous blue dial and the red second hand, it really worked with the icy case and bezel and it looks so un-Rolexy. I've seen these Yachtamsters before with fairly insipid dials and not really liked them too much, so it must be the strong red/blue colour scheme that's changed my mind. The watch is 40mm in diameter and reasonably thin, without being silly, and really the only thing about the watch that I wasn't overly keen on was the bracelet, or rather the width of it. It seemed awfully narrow for a 40mm watch, I don't know for sure but I would say it must have tapered to at least 16mm, which seemed a bit too narrow for my liking. Remarkably, even the cyclops didn't bother me, probably because unlike some of the ones I own, it actually does what it's supposed to and makes the date easier to read!

The watch is water resistant to 100M, although the lady who served me assured me that Rolex test to 300M anyway. I should hope so because 100M is a bit stingy for a non-chronograph called a 'Yachtmaster' don't you think? As you'd expect from Rolex the hour markers on the dial are white gold filled with Rolex's own lume (Chromalight) which has a long lasting blue glow. I didn't get to experience the lume myself, but I understand it's pretty good.

I honestly don't buy into the Rolex hype at all, looking around the boutiques I noted that there was almost nothing there that I would buy if I had pockets full of cash. But this one really stood out to me, and I'm glad I actually managed to find something I genuinely liked to try on rather than just trying on something unattractive for the sake of it. But £8900 is a lot of money and if I had that available then there's so many other options I would explore first that I very much doubt I would end up buying this (resale values be damned - more on this anon). Still I'm glad I've finally experienced a little bit of the Rolex magic, even if overall it has left me more confused than ever as to why this brand above all others are so outrageously successful.

ON THE WRIST: TAG Heuer Aquaracer 'Pepsi' GMT v TAG Heuer Aquaracer Calibre 5 'Polar Explorer'

WAY201F.BA0927                WAY2013.BA0927

Selfridges / London, 9th March 2019

While this head to head comparison came about almost entirely by accident (the watches were displayed close together in Selfridges' cabinet), it struck me as I edited the image above that I'd chosen to pitch two watches together which are united by a common theme: Rolex. Like it or not, one can't fail to think 'Rolex GMT' when clapping eyes on the Aquaracer Pepsi for the first time, and similarly you'd be hard pushed to ignore the fact that the WAY2013 has more than a whiff of the Rolex Explorer II (Polar) about it!

I've tried both of these watches on before and I will put the links to the original 'On the Wrist' posts at the bottom of the page. Also, both of these have been 'on my list' at one time or another - but so far I'm yet to fully commit to either of them... these two definitely have character, but my interest has waxed and waned for some reason and I can't quite work out why that is exactly.

I did get slightly excited a while back when TAG Heuer released a 41mm quartz version of the 'Explorer' (I'm just going to call it the 'Explorer', okay...) but when I got to see it it was a huge disappointment. The 2mm drop in size I could live with, but the slatted dial was gone and they switched the cool black 'rubber' markers out for polished rhodium. It was about £500 cheaper, but the effect was somewhat ruined and I didn't like it much at all.

No such option exists for the Pepsi, it's the Calibre 5 or no TAG Pepsi at all. I wonder if they'll release a quartz version for Baselworld 2019? I doubt it. So WAY201F it is then and with a list price of £2200 it represents a significant increase over the WAY2013, but of course you are getting a GMT funtion and that funky bezel. I suspect most of the sales for the Pepsi will be driven by the bezel rather than the GMT function if I'm honest, so the argument that 'I don't need a GMT function' is somewhat moot (especially as I've already got one and have owned and sold another one!).

I definitely go back and forth with these two, but one thing that has changed since I tried the 'Explorer' on for the first time is that I have added a white dial TAG Heuer to my collection, in fact three white dial TAG Heuers... which means that box no longer needs to be ticked. By contrast of course, while I have acquired the 1500 Series GMT (one of the three white dials in question) I don't have anything remotely resembling a Pepsi bezel, or a ceramic bezel of any description come to that.

So why is it that I still can't choose the Pepsi? On paper it seems like it has the upper hand. It can't be the dreaded cyclops because they both have them (both equally useless and ugly) and they share the same bracelet and case. So what is it? Well, while I do like the GMT, there is something about those black hour markers and that orange second hand. It just looks cool against that slatted white background. And so, while I do like the Pepsi, I think the Explorer is the one I would go for*.

I'm not going to spend £1850 on one mind you, but if and when these trickle down to the pre-owned market I think I will probably bite. Actually, between you and I, I think the Pepsi will hold it's value a bit better as well, which is potentially a bonus for those of us looking for a pre-owned 'Explorer'. But that quartz 'Explorer'... that's just nasty! I don't want to ever have to look at that again!

(*Well, ask me again in a month or two and we'll see!)


Original 'On the Wrist' Posts:

WAY2013.BA0927 'Explorer' Calibre 5:
http://tagheuerenthusiast.blogspot.com/2017/06/on-wrist-aquaracer-calibre-5-automatic.html

WAY201F.BA0927 'Pepsi' GMT Calibre 7:
http://tagheuerenthusiast.blogspot.com/2018/04/on-wrist-tag-heuer-aquaracer-gmt.html

ON THE WRIST: TAG Heuer Monaco Calibre 12 v Heuer Monaco Calibre 11

CAW211P.FC6356                        CAW2111.FC6183

Selfridges / London, 9th March 2019

I realise of course that this post is likely to prove controversial. Pitching the classic blue-dial Heuer Monaco up against the later TAG Heuer version is just asking for trouble and while I can’t help but have my own predilections, I honestly approached this as openly and fairly as I could… and actually you might be slightly surprised by my conclusions.

On the face of it these two watches are quite similar, at least until you get them in your hands. Once you are close up with them you realise that there are distinct differences in the dials. For a start the Heuer has a very flat blue dial, while the TAG Heuer has a somewhat brighter, metallic dial which I personally prefer. No doubt some might argue the flat blue dial makes for greater legibility and that’s probably true, but for me that electric blue wins every time.

I also much prefer the red subdial hands on the TAG Heuer to the black ones found on the Heuer, and I find the red on the minute and hour hands on the Calibre 11 a bit much to be honest. On the other hand I do like the small red markers around the dial on the CAW211P and I also think the older model’s applied hour markers are much more interesting and well thought out. I can see the logic of the radial design on the CAW2111, but because the dial is square they end up getting cut off at odd angles which looks pretty unappealing actually.

I also think the Heuer wins out when it comes to the positioning of the logo. It seems to fit better with the dial and because it’s wide and flat it leaves room for the marker at the 12 position which is notable by its absence on the TAG Heuer version. I can’t help thinking it might look better if they moved the TAG Heuer shield lower and moved the ‘Monaco’ text to the bottom part of the dial, which would then allow room for the missing marker. Also the Monaco text looks a bit odd on top of the TAG Heuer shield, but somehow it works with the old Heuer logo.

So now we come to my biggest issue with the Calibre 11, that being the positioning of the crown on the ‘wrong’ side of the case. My friend Rich has a Tudor Pelagos LHD that has the crown on the left, and I don’t mind that at all. In fact, I think it’s quite a good idea as it stops the crown digging in to your wrist. The problem is, the Pelagos doesn’t have a chronograph so there aren’t any pushers on the case, unlike the CAW211P. I know this is a unique selling point of the Calibre 11, but unfortunately I find it very strange to see the gap inbetween the pushers where the crown should be, and I really don’t like it.

There’s not a great deal to choose between the supplied leather straps, but I think I would give the nod to the perforated version found on the Heuer. As you would expect at the mid-to-high £4000 mark, both are supplied with push-button deployment clasps and for me it’s the TAG that wins out here. The TAG shield buckle is just a touch more refined and subtle, while the Heuer logo is huge and unnecessarily in your face.

As far as prices go, there is a 10% difference with the Heuer Calibre 11 attracting a £400 premium over the TAG Heuer Calibre 12. Anyone who knows watches will understand how this works, a premium is paid for historical importance and for having the ‘correct’ logo on the dial and the crown on the left hand side of the case. After all, his Royal Heuerness Steve McQueen wore a Calibre 11 not a Calibre 12 and that extra authenticity costs. No one should criticise TAG for this as this sort of thing is the norm in the industry and doubtless we could come up with some much more extreme and unjustifiable examples of price leveraging if we wanted to.

Youtube 'Watch Guru' Archie Luxury would advise you to take the Heuer every time, because ‘when you come to sell it’ it will have retained its value better and will be easier to sell. I’m itching to write a post about Archie, Rolex and the whole watch collecting thing, but as I’m a bit snowed under with posts just now it’s going to have to wait. It’s likely to be one that’s going to take quite a bit of writing, but there’s a lot of stuff I want to get off my chest at some point…

In this instance I would agree with Archie, I’m sure the Calibre 11 will be easier to liquidate should you want/need to, but personally I never take into account resale values when I buy watches as I have no intention of selling anything I buy. Admittedly I have lost fairly big chunks of money on the two watches I have sold in the last couple of years, but I just can’t go down that route and people who do generally end up buying the same watches as everyone else (Speedmaster, Submariner, etc) and that’s not me at all.

So, inevitably you are going to expect me to choose between these two… and you’re probably expecting me to pick the CAW2111 because my preference for the TAG Heuer logo is well established. However, while I really don’t like the left side crown and I really do like the metallic blue dial on the TAG, the more I look at those radial hour markers the more I find they REALLY annoy me.

So, as it stands, I really don’t think I could commit myself to either model. However all is not completely lost because if you click the link below you’ll find a list of my top 6 favourite Monacos, and maybe one day one of those will find its way onto my wrist instead!

http://tagheuerenthusiast.blogspot.com/2018/04/feature-my-top-five-monacos.html

Looking at these, I notice that five out of the six also have the radial hour markers, but for some reason they've never bothered me - so it's clearly the combination of blue dial and radial markers that annoys me... :)

FEATURE: Another Trip to London to Look at Watches...

Long time readers may remember that almost exactly a year ago my friend Rich and I made a day trip to London with the express intention of visiting as many watch stores as possible... well, we decided to do it all over again, only this time we really went for it!

Our first port of call was the Omega boutique at the top of Regent Street, and strangely enough I'd never tried on an Omega before, so it really was high time I did. I ended up trying on six different pieces, including the Speedmaster and Speedmaster 2, three Planet Oceans and 300M Chronograph. We ended up staying in there nearly an hour, which I really hadn't been expecting or intending to do.

I must say, the service we received in this boutique from Lin Lin was superb and seeing that I was noting down the pieces that I had tried on she offered to print me spec sheets for everything. I'll probably never buy an Omega, but if I did, I would make a point of going back to this boutique and asking for Lin Lin, she is a credit to the company!

Next we headed down Carnaby Street and happened to stop off at the Swatch boutique. I've never been overly sold on Swatch, but I know Rich likes the collectability of them and it was interesting to see the System 51 models on display. We didn't stay too long before heading down a few doors to G-Shock.

I didn't actually try anything on in G-Shock, but it was quite interesting to see the wide variety of styles and prices on offer. They even had some steel models that were over £1000 which I wasn't really expecting.

We popped into the Karl Lagerfield store on Oxford Street so I could pick up a little gift for my wife. It's a shame Karl has died recently and I love that his cat is worth $3.5M. Crazy! After picking up this cute (if somewhat overpriced keyring), we headed a couple of doors up to Watches of Switzerland.

I've been in this store several times, but I've still never been up to the top floor. I always head for the basement first since that's where the LVMH brands are to be found, and this time I tried on a couple of TAG Heuers and my first Hublot. Then we headed back up to street level and I tried on my first Ulysse Nardin, it was to be a day of firsts, with more to come...

Mindful of the long day ahead and our poor feet, we decided a brief stop at the Slug and Lettuce on Hanover Street was in order. I had ideally planned to get in there before 12 as I feared it might be rather busy on a Saturday lunchtime, but it was actually rather quiet and we passed a pleasant half hour in there before moving on.

Our next stop was Oris on South Molton street, where I discovered the rather exciting 'Dive Control Limited Edition 1000M Chronograph', a real beast at 51mm but one that you could actually wear due to it's very short lugs and non-flaring strap. Can't honestly say there was much else in the store I was interested in, but that one got a big thumbs up from me.

Selfridges was next, and after wasting half an hour going around in circles trying to find the toilets, we finally hit The Wonder Room, where I tried on my first ever Rolex. Not only that, but I managed to find one that I actually liked... which was a surprise to me, as I find most Rolexes hideous!

Also in The Wonder Room, we looked at a couple of TAG Heuer Monacos, a couple of Aquaracers and a Breitling Exospace B55 on a blue rubber strap. Our server 'Alan' seemed to think that Rich and I were an 'item' and he suggested we might like to 'share' a Pepsi GMT Aquaracer!

Alan was clearly desperate for some commission as despite telling us he was heading off for his lunch he kept hovering as we moved around the room, terrified that the minute he left we might buy something from a different salesman. In the end he gave up and I tried on the Brietling assisted by a truly charmless chap who demanded to know what was stopping me committing to the £6000+ Exospace!

I had hoped to try on a steel non-Offshore AP Royal Oak on this visit, but it was not to be, Selfridges and Harrods were a steel Royal Oak free zone, which makes me wonder if they are now playing the same silly games as Rolex?

With time knocking on, we crossed Oxford Street to visit the TAG Heuer boutique and catch up with the lovely Aneta (who I already knew from the Bicester store). There wasn't much in store that I hadn't already seen, but I did have a good natter with Aneta and managed to try on the new Senna Carrera Heuer 02T. Also Aneta told me they are expecting the Nanograph in store soon, so hopefully I will be able to see that in the near future!

From here we took a walk down New Bond Street (completely missing the Victorinox shop we had hoped to visit), before stopping off at Charbonel et Walker to pick up some hideously expensive chocolates (£95 per kilo, I kid you not!), good job I only bought a few...

After a nice lunch in Richoux on Piccadilly (if you like Carrot Cake, this is the place for you) we crossed the road to Burlington Arcade, only to find that at 5:45pm the shops were shutting up for the night. Next time we will go there before we go to Richoux... but that wasn't the end of our day, because while Bond Street closes at 6pm on a Saturday, thankfully Knightsbridge does not!

And so we headed into the Seiko boutique where I was unimpressed with the both service and the overall attitude. A complete contrast to some of the places we had visited today, especially the Omega and TAG Heuer boutiques which had been exemplary.

And so we made it to our last destination for the day, Harrods. It was a shame to see that the enormous Lange & Sohn display piece had been removed (perhaps headed to Baselworld?) but we spent a good forty five minutes chatting with Mahmoud in Hublot while trying on some very nice watches. And then finally a good little while with Harry in the mixed brands room where we had a look at the new Tudor GMT Pepsi and a couple of rather striking Zenith Defy El Primero 21s.

Needless to say I will be reporting on each of the 27 watches I tried on in due course, I will probably spread them out a bit though as this blog is supposed to be focused mainly on TAG Heuer and only 7 of the watches I tried on were TAGs. I've made a start, and the Rolex, Oris and Seiko reviews should be up soon...

I wonder how many watches I'll manage to try on next March...?

ON THE WRIST: TAG Heuer Carrera Heuer02 GMT

CBG2A1Z.FT6157

Selfridges / Oxford Street, London, 5th January 2019

Leaving aside the slightly shoddy service I received in Selfridges, which I already mentioned in my 'London' post a couple of weeks ago, I'm still quite surprised just how long it has taken for this to reach the UK. The watch was one of the talking points of Baselworld 2018 (which took place last March) and yet it's taken until January for it to arrive here. Even more astonishing since it has apparently been on sale in Sweden since last September, and I thought the UK was a prime market for TAG Heuer?

Selfridges actually had both the rubber strap and bracelet versions of the watch on display, but as ever with the 'modular' Carreras, I find the lugs don't work so well with the bracelets as while the rubber strap joins seamlessly to create a fluid transformation to the case the bracelets form a rather cumbersome looking step.

CBG2A1Z.BA0658

But you pays your money and you takes your choice, and actually it's fairly unusual for me to choose a rubber strap over a bracelet these days. Two years ago I was mad for anything with a rubber strap, but I've definitely changed my views on that with most watches. Not with this one though and so I chose the FT6157 to have a look at.

At 45mm this is a sizeable watch and it looks it too. I'm used to my own 45mm Carrera but I think this appears slightly bigger, which is probably because the case is steel rather than black PVD coated titanium. Actually I'm pretty sure the man in Selfridges told me this was titanium, but it isn't. He also told me it was 43mm, and again... it isn't.

This one looks a little different close-up than it does in the photographs, I can't quite put my finger on what exactly looks different, I guess maybe the blue of the bezel looks darker than I expected... and one minor detail that is different from just about every single photo that I've seen is that TAG have replaced the text 'GMT' with the words 'Twin Time'. I really don't know what the reasoning behind this is, because the watch is listed on their website as the TAG Heuer Carrera Heuer 02 GMT. Also, everyone refers to it as the 'GMT' and personally I think the GMT text looked a bit neater as well, but in the end it's a tiny detail which doesn't sway my opinion of the watch as a whole.

This is a watch that I thought was a probably contender for my next 'big' purchase, but I have to say on the wrist it didn't make me want to max out my credit card there and then. I don't know whether it's because I've just sent my Grand Carrera GMT to Watchfinder and so I'm slightly down on GMTs...? As a complication it's true that I have zero use for one as I travel abroad about as often as Mars goes round the sun... two or three times, and even when I did go abroad I took my Heuer 01 instead!

But I don't necessarily think it's that. Maybe I just don't like the black/blue bezel combination as much as I thought I did? I always thought the Rolex 'Batman' looked quite nice, but I was less impressed with the David Guetta Formula 1 bezel. At the time I put that down to the materials used in an entry level watch but now I'm not so sure and I also think that blue sub-dial ring just reminds me that I'd rather have the carbon Carrera instead...

The TAG Heuer Carrera Heuer 02 GMT is £4900 on a bracelet and £4800 on the rubber, and if it isn't already in your local AD I would imagine it will be soon, just don't ask for the 'Twin Time' Carrera because they probably won't know what you're talking about!

FEATURE: Another Day Out in London...

As I wrote in my last post, my experience of owning the Grand Carrera GMT has not been all that I hoped and since I can’t really afford to just sit on a watch like that in the hope that one day I’ll change my mind, I decided to part exchange it with Watchfinder for a couple of watches that I will wear.

Watchfinder's central London store is in Avery Row (off New Bond St)

Of course I could have posted the watch to them, but since taking it in myself meant I could see my new watches (although I couldn’t have them until my watch has been checked out) and gave me an excuse to spend a day in London, well that seemed like a sound idea to me.

So I rocked up at Watchfinder first thing (with my wife in tow) and dropped off the Calibre 8 GMT, and I have to say I am super happy with the new additions that are coming. Both of them look way better than the pictures led me to believe and one of them looks absolutely mint, so that was an excellent start to my day.

The Wonder Room in Selfridges

Next stop was Selfridges, which was somewhat underwhelming if I’m honest. They have a reasonable collection of TAG pieces in there I guess, and I was excited to see the new Carrera Twin Time and to try it on – but there was no one manning the TAG stand so I wandered off figuring that by the time I got back there someone would have shown up.

Amazing hand-finished 'Frosted Gold' AP Royal Oak

I had a look at some of the (rather gaudy) Hublots and my wife was drooling over the ‘frosted gold’ Audemars Piguet Royal Oaks (though she definitely can’t afford one of those), but actually there wasn’t that much that was blowing me away. Audemars Piguet’s stand seems rather sparsely stocked and seems rather too heavily weighted towards solid gold pieces.

CBG2A1Z.FT6157

Returning to the TAG stall there was still no one there, so I nabbed the man on the Longines stall who quickly came over and showed me the watch. It’s a nice watch, but if I was looking to spend that kind of money I think I’d want a bit better customer service than that to be honest.

A short step over the road is the TAG Heuer boutique and regular readers will remember that my first visit there was less than stellar. Quite different this time though, I’m happy to report. Evan single-handedly restored my faith in the Oxford Street store and was very friendly and happy to show me several watches including the carbon Carrera, the new Max Verstappen Formula 1, the Mikropendulum and the Oxford Street Limited Edition Carrera. I also spied the new Alec Monopoly Formula 1 (which looks better in the flesh than I expected) and the Tete de Vipere Tourbillon Carrera in there and also another unknown Formula 1 quartz with two red stripes down one side of the dial (I’m trying to get to the bottom of this*). I also had a good look at Evan’s own matt ceramic Carrera, which was very nice indeed and a great choice – no fingerprints on the matt ceramic!

TAG Heuer Mikropendulum

Leaving there (reluctantly – my wife was hungry) we headed back down Bond Street to ‘Richoux’ on Piccadilly, via Charbonnel et Walker to pick up some posh chocolates. I love C&W but I had to laugh when I saw on the receipt that their ‘pick and mix’ chocolates are £95 per kilo. Wow, that’s about 5 times the price of Lindt!

Burgers and awesome carrot cake consumed, we caught the tube to Kensington and walked around to the far end of Harrods for easy access to the watch room. Last time I visited Harrods the watch room was in a state of flux, but now it’s complete (although I’m sad to say that the Richard Mille boutique has disappeared) and slap bang in the middle of it there’s a very impressive 15ft high model of a Lange and Sohne split time, complete with display back! Impressive stuff.

Lange and Sohne Split Time model display.

We headed for the Hublot store and I have to say the watches in there were a lot nicer than the ones we saw in Selfridges. In fact my wife was rather taken with the ceramic ‘Black Magic’ range, the simplest of which cost about £7,000 and looked absolutely fantastic. In fact I think that might have superceded the TAG Heuer Link Bella Hadid as my wife’s dream watch!

This Hublot is really, really nice!

There were quite a few very nice pieces in there, including the Big Bang Unico Sapphire and also the Spirit of Big Bang Sapphire, both of which are incredible to look at, if way out of my price range. They also had a pink sapphire Unico as well and a ladies version with diamonds and a pink rubber strap, all at crazy prices – but still a lot cheaper than a sapphire Richard Mille to be fair.

Hublot Big Bang Unico Sapphire

They also had the Ferrari skeleton watches and the Depeche Mode watch too, and actually quite a few really nice pieces – and also some really weird ones with dials that look a bit like pentagrams… I’m not a fan of those, they seem awfully hard to read the time on them for a start.

Moving on we wandered into the Roger Dubuis store. I remember the first time we went in there we saw the ‘King Arthur’ watch (and several other very impressive pieces), but this time I somehow ended up trying on a watch that cost £137,000. Oddly enough, on leaving TAG Heuer I said to my wife that the Mikropendulum (£33,000) had taken over from the Royal Oak ‘Vampire’ as the most expensive watch I’d ever tried on, well that didn’t last very long!

The lady in the store asked me if I knew the brand and I said I did, but I wasn’t pretending to be a customer… however, the conversation led to me pointing to a Excalibur Spider Tourbillon and before you could say ‘this cost more than I paid for my house fifteen years ago’ I was slipping off my quartz 6000 Series (£300 from eBay no less!) and trying my best to hide it in plain sight on the tray in front of me.

It’s a cool watch right enough, but I can’t say with my hand on my heart that I’m gutted that I can’t afford it. I guess it’s so far out of reality that in a way there’s just no point wanting it, because I’m never going to get it, but while I do like Roger Dubuis watches I can’t help feeling it should have been a bit more affecting…. the white rubber strap seemed a little grubby as well!

The Fine Watch Multi-brand Room in Harrods

We had a quick scoot around the multi-brand showroom at the end of the corridor, but there wasn’t really anything particularly inspiring in there. Though having said that, some of the new Zeniths are pretty nice. I also spied a pre-owned Heuer Monaco in there (with the round pushers) which I believe was going for £19,000 or so. Not my cup of tea if I’m honest, but I’m sure some people would be well impressed with that.

Karl Lagerfeld Handbag

And that was pretty much it to be honest, we had a look in Karl Lagerfeld’s store on Regent Street, Superdry and Kate Spade and then made our way back to the train station. Definitely a day to remember, and I can’t wait to take delivery of my two new watches!

WAZ1116

*Turns out that mystery watch is in fact a WAZ1116, which oddly I can only find on a Honk Kong website called 'DFS'... (thanks to Tom and Evan at TAG Heuer for clearing this up for me - I just have to know!).