Watches

What are you viewing things as? What matters to you?

Is it the design? The strap/bracelet? The weight? The movement? The specs? The history behind the brand?

I've got quite a few watches at the Sub-$1K price point and there's different things i like about each one, for example, this is what I like about 3 of mine:

1 - Vostok Amphibia. I love the engineering of it. I love the Soviet/Russian approach to problem solving, while the Swiss divers of the time were putting chunky crown-guards on their dive watches to make sure that the crown and stem wouldn't be damaged, they instead changed the crown so it had to be pulled to engage to do the same job with less material needed. I love the acrylic crystal specially designed to become more waterproof as the watch goes deeper. I love the history behind it, that it was a legit "space watch" (worn into space in Soyuz-17 for example).

2 - Swatch. I love the /fun/ behind Swatches. I love the retro charm of the 80s styled ones. No, they're not going to win any awards for the best specs or best value of the money, but they're fun to wear every now and then.

3 - Vintage Smiths. I love the history behind the brand and them beating Rolex to the top of Everest. Its fun to wear a watch made in England, once one of the horological capitals of the world and contributing some of the key enhancements of watches.

Squale

IMO one of the best brands for $1k budget is Certina.

Have a lot of positive experience from their watches. Both quartz and automatic.

For 200-500, I don't necessarily feel the need to be blown away. Orient, seiko, hamilton etc may have their issues, but for the price many of them make me pretty happy.

I feel like the 500-1000 range is kind of a no man's land. A lot of stuff there doesn't offer much of an upgrade over the cheap stuff, but costs a lot more. I bought a used NTH recently that I love, but a new one is 750, and at that price, it really doesn't seem to offer much value. And I haven't seen anything in that price range that I feel much different about.

As you go up the scale, quality does improve, but as with so many things, you're dealing with diminishing marginal returns. A hydroconquest isn't 5x as nice as a Kamasu...

It depends on what you like and what expectations you have. I've handled $500 watches that were very impressive and $20,000 watches that were disappointing.

If you like vintage looking watches, Baltic.

If you like modern looking watches, second hand Formex.

I have purchased a watch from both of them and really like them.

As a third option, I really dig Mido Oceanstar 200C, but haven’t tried one. Swatch group brand, chronometer, day-date complication, 200m diver with a ceramic bezel and engraved dial, crazy good p/q, at least on paper.

Do you like your hamilton?

Have you looked into Nodus (sector GMT pacific pictured)? If you are okay with an NH35 movement the finish and bracelet are phenomenal for the price.

https://preview.redd.it/hmz0sctb22wb1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2c4d6e3351158862cc7af16bb0c54da71347d840

You could check out Zeppelin. They start at about $300 and some models are absolutely gorgeous. Mostly quartz in the lower price range, but some automatics around the 1k range as well. I own two, you can check them out in my post history.