Back Together Again

my first watch, complete

For every one person who still has their first watch, there are dozens of others who are not so fortunate. Whether the watch was lost, sold, broken, or stolen, we all had a first watch, but not all of us still have it.

My first “proper” watch was a TAG Heuer Formula 1 Chronograph, a chunky, eye-catching quartz piece that lived on my wrist for years. It was a gift from my grandparents on my 14th birthday, and I was obsessed; it was the nicest thing I owned, and I remember when I went to boarding school the following year, I was so afraid of losing it that I even wore it to shower and sleep. In college, I had the same practice, never taking it off. The watch basically was a part of me, and after about 12 years of wear and tear, the watch showed every bit of its age.

For those unfamiliar with these F1s, the case is steel with a rubber, left side outer edge, along with rubber seals and bumpers surrounding the chronograph pushers. The earlier iterations of this rubber weren’t exactly the most robust, and it was common for it to decay and even fall off with a lot of element exposure. I wore this watch diving, hiking, snowboarding, in the extreme heat and cold, and basically put it through as many paces as I could; eventually, all of the rubber had fallen away, and the watch was in need of some servicing…

…a lot of servicing. Besides the case rubber, there was also a time while diving where I forgot about the golden rule of chronographs: don’t use them while diving. Well, I used the pushers, and lightly flooded the watch. But hey, that’s how we get patina, right??

So in 2018, I took my F1 to an authorized dealer to send back to TAG for some repair. I’ll spare you all the long version of how that went down, but the short of it is that while the watch was sent away, the AD actually closed permanently, and it took me nearly 6 months to get my watch back. It was only through the kindness of one of the AD’s former employees, whose contact number I still had, that I got my watch back at all; it had been delivered to the AD months prior and locked away, right before they closed down, and she actually went back to the closed location storage and found my watch for me. Talk about some good fortune.

When I received my watch again, the case was new, as was the bezel, while the rest of the watch was in pretty much the same condition as how I sent it in (by request - I like the scratches, and there was a little bit of patina starting to form on the subdials that I wanted to remain). Only one thing seemed off, and that was the bezel. It was incredibly difficult to rotate, would frequently stick to one position despite efforts to turn it, and ultimately became more decorative than performative. Having just been a little bit scarred from the experience of taking it in for a service, I opted to leave it as is and try to ignore the issue.

Well, after a while, ignore it I could not. Previously, along with my watch, the former AD employee also gave me the bag of old/used parts that had been swapped out from my watch during its servicing; included there was the old bezel, with all of its scuffs and scratches. I figured I would pop off the bezel, see what the issue might be, and put the old one back in its rightful place. The bezel did pop off after a bit of wrestling, and I found the problem that was preventing it from rotating normally; the thin metal ring that makes the *click* sound when the bezel passes over it was, astonishing, installed upside down, with the bezel actually just mashed down on top of it. I didn’t even know it was possible to do that, if I’m being honest, so I wondered at that point if the AD had even sent it back to TAG at all, or rather, had they just done a crappy job in house with spare parts…who even knows, but it wouldn’t be the strangest thing to happen in an AD.

So part one, done, and now part two: the old bezel. Only, once again, I noticed something that I didn’t think was possible; the old bezel was bent at the halfway mark to such a degree that when half of it were lying on the watch case, the other half would incline to about 1/16 of an inch into the air. It almost looked like a boomerang, which meant that whoever had taken it off in the first place had physically muscled it so forcefully that it bent in half. What’s supposed to happen instead is a knife or specific bezel removal tool is leveraged between the bezel and case, and without a ton of effort, there’s a small *pop* and the bezel comes off.

As much as that was a shock, I figured I would worry about that later - it was the old bezel after all - and just put the newer one back on. However, since it had been absolutely mashed onto the case by the AD, there was a good amount of damage to the ring and groove areas, and as a result, the bezel would just slide on and off without gripping anymore; one turn of my wrist, and it would fall off and onto the ground. It was really a wonder that it hadn’t fallen off before, but it was now basically even more useless than when it was on the watch itself. I put both bezels in a plastic bag, dropped them a drawer, and decided to wear the watch with no bezel for a while. It was a neat look, after all, and the newness of it helped to dull my frustration at the whole situation.

Fast forward another year or so: I lost the bag and the bezels. I don’t know when, I don’t know how, but after a while and moving to a new apartment, they were nowhere to be found. Not that they were in usable shape anyway - one being bent, one being essentially stripped - but I had held out hope that I could fix one of them. Couldn’t much do that with them gone, so the hunt started for a replacement bezel.

This, too, was nowhere to be found. Reasonably at least. On eBay, people were charging silly amounts of money for spare F1 parts (hundreds of dollars for even one small piece), and they were most often not even for this watch even if they were labeled as such. Don’t even get me started on the crazy parts/repair listings either; people are living in a fantasy world out there with their prices. I wasn’t going to spend $500+ on a junk watch just for a bezel, so this past summer, I finally decided to get over my AD aversion, take the F1 to a TAG boutique nearby, and see if I could order a new bezel from them.

It started off encouragingly enough. The staff were very friendly and reassuring, quickly sending the watch to the TAG HQ for me and feeling confident that having a bezel popped on there was an easy enough task for one of the world’s largest watch brands. We shipped, and we waited. Maybe a week later, we received an email from the factory, and boy was it silly.

The answer to the question of whether or not a bezel could be put on the watch was a quick yes. However, there were conditions. In order to receive a new bezel, I had to agree to 15 (yes, fifteen) other repair requirements, including replacing the hands, any parts showing wear/patina, and a mandatory purchase of a factory rubber strap. I’m not kidding. Oh, and the total cost was going to be $541…plus tax. When I wrote back and asked if I could a) select some of the options for repair, but not others, and b) forgo the strap purchase, since I already had the OEM steel bracelet, the answer back was a resounding no; if I wanted a bezel, it was all or nothing.

To be fair, this was not the fault or doing at all of the boutique staff, and just as the former employee of the old AD went above and beyond to get me my watch back, the staff in this case did everything they could to lobby for me with the factory to get a bezel without dropping half a grand on needless repairs. We were ultimately unsuccessful, and my watch was once again returned to me in its interesting but somewhat sad state. I remember thinking how some watch brands really just don’t get it; wasn’t it reasonable that I wanted the watch, now going on 18 years old, to retain its looks and marks from a life well worn? If I wanted a new watch, I would simply buy one; I didn’t want my old watch to be new, because at that point, it wouldn’t even feel like my watch anymore. It was a bummer, but in retrospect, it shouldn’t have been surprising.

…okay no matter what, the idea that I would have to purchase an OEM rubber strap that I didn’t need in order to get a new bezel would have been surprising under any circumstances. That was, to put it simply, a cash-grabby, bullshit thing to do. But anyways, I promise this story goes to a happier place.

…oh look! A happier place!

After resuming my internet search and not feeling very optimistic, I found an old, beat up F1 on eBay for a surprisingly reasonable price. I don’t think I’ve ever hit the “buy it now” button so fast in my life, and just this week, it arrived. I tore open the packaging, popped off the bezel, gave it a good cleaning, and popped it onto my watch.

*click*

Just like that, it was whole again. Back to normal. In one piece. And as a pleasant bonus, this new (old) bezel has a number of dings and scratches in it, blending in seamlessly with my own well-loved watch. I’ve worn it nonstop this week, feeling a bit of that same excitement that I felt when I was 14 and wearing it for the first time. While part of this whole saga was absolutely about the bezel and righting a wrong, it was also about putting back together something that’s held more of my core memories than any other object I’ve ever owned.

There were a few takeaways for me when thinking about this whole multiyear watch journey.

1. The AD experience, for some brands, and some specific functions, can leave a LOT to be desired. And in my case, it wasn’t even the fault of the people I was dealing with directly; they were lovely. But the larger entity really let me down hard twice there, so I’ll have to think hard about the next time (if there is a next time). It’s clear that when a brand, in this case TAG, has a way of doing things, the owner of the watch can just take a hike in their eyes. Again, I get them wanting to service the watch and all that, but buying a new strap that I don’t want or need being set as a non-negotiable was flat out wrong.

2. There are a ton of people who always want their watches to look like new. I am definitely not one of those people. Give me dents, give me scratches, give me patina.

3. The satisfaction of fixing things myself is 👌🏼 I taught myself how to change the batteries in my quartz watches after the first AD debacle, and from there I’ve continued to learn more and more about cleaning watches, fixing watches, and even taking on a few project pieces. I might not be servicing a Rolex movement anytime soon, but I’ll take a stab at most minor things.

4. Lastly, nothing beats your first watch. You might eventually own something nicer, more complicated, more expensive, or just “more” of something in general, but the first watch will always hold a special place on the wrist.

As always, wherever you are, and wherever you’re going, many thanks for stopping by.