Continuing my recent watch entry trend… I am a member on a lot of those “sample sale” type sites. There’s usually a watch sale on at least one of those sites on any given day. Prices range from sub-$100s to well into the thousands. Is it worth it? Well, that depends.
A $3000 watch for $300? What a steal! I’m a smart consumer!
What irks me about a lot of these brands is that they throw a random MSRP out there—usually in the thousands—then the watch shows up at a steep “discount” around a few hundred bucks. The reality is, the watch was never worth $3000. And I don’t mean that in a “my lord, who would ever pay $3k for a watch” (because I would), I mean they are misleading consumers into thinking they’re getting a $3k luxury Swiss-made watch when in reality they’re getting exactly what they paid for: a $300 (or whatever) watch with Japanese or Chinese movements in the case.
There isn’t anything necessarily wrong with those movements or the watches, you just have to understand what you’re buying and what it is worth to YOU. To brand a watch as Swiss (not that being Swiss automatically means it’s the best either) and throw completely outrageous MSRPs out there is pretty dishonest, imho. Those tactics really turn me off from a company, even if their watches are actually decent. Invicta is notorious for this.
Crystals are those shiny things, right?
When I see a watch still going for more than ~$400, the first thing I look for in the specs is sapphire crystal. This refers to the transparent cover over the face of the watch. Sapphire is the most scratch resistant crystal available for watches (and the most pricey), which is kind of a big deal to me because I’m a big enough klutz to trip and scrape myself just getting off the couch. Mineral crystal is probably the most common crystal type on your average layman’s (i.e. non-high end) watch. That’s about a 5 on Mohs Scale of Hardness. Sapphire is a 9. For comparison, diamond is 10.
The reason I look at crystal first is because it’s the easiest way to tell if the manufacturer gives a shit. If you can’t bother to do an easy thing like use sapphire crystal on the case, I can’t trust you put a good movement under the case. It’s a lack of attention to detail. That’s fine for a cheapie watch; unacceptable for something worth more than a few hundred. Hell, I just ordered a watch for $130 that uses sapphire crystal, so it’s not like that’s the difference between affordable and prohibitively expensive.
Anyway, that’s just a couple easy things I look out for when buying watches. In the end, none of this nitpicking baloney really matters if something in the watch really stirs you. If you like it, buy it and wear it in good health.