I personally consider affordable below 1k for automatic watches, and below 500 for quartz. Notable exception to the rule is G-Shock. :-)
In all honesty, deminishing returns in some cases start with automatic watches above 500. But most of the established brands crossed that long time ago. Even microbrands - I have recently purchased Wise AD9 in 904L steel because it is affordable for 904L watch with Miyota 9-series - but it also crossed over 500 bucks. I love it more than my Tissots from the similar price range (and those are also 316L) and it comes damn close in overall feeling to SPB143 which I absolutely love (after replacing the bracelet with 3rd party one, which I also didn't need to invest in with Wise).
So that is likely where watch community influencers come from - 1000 is a nice and round number and in reality, for most of the established brands, around $1000 buys you a lot of watch technically speaking and gains beween $1000 and $2000 or $3000 are topically smaller than what you get by bumping your budget from $500 to $1000 with those brands.
I personally consider affordable below 1k for automatic watches, and below 500 for quartz. Notable exception to the rule is G-Shock. :-)
In all honesty, deminishing returns in some cases start with automatic watches above 500. But most of the established brands crossed that long time ago. Even microbrands - I have recently purchased Wise AD9 in 904L steel because it is affordable for 904L watch with Miyota 9-series - but it also crossed over 500 bucks. I love it more than my Tissots from the similar price range (and those are also 316L) and it comes damn close in overall feeling to SPB143 which I absolutely love (after replacing the bracelet with 3rd party one, which I also didn't need to invest in with Wise).
So that is likely where watch community influencers come from - 1000 is a nice and round number and in reality, for most of the established brands, around $1000 buys you a lot of watch technically speaking and gains beween $1000 and $2000 or $3000 are topically smaller than what you get by bumping your budget from $500 to $1000 with those brands.