My preference is not to buy new when good secondhand is available. I like vintage, but in any event, I think new is usually not good value. I’ve never bought a new car because the value of a car drops massively as soon as it leaves the showroom. The same goes, I guess, for watches.

Besides this, feeding the system rather than maintaining, fixing, repurposing, is not the way I believe we are going to make the world a better place. I have a mild moral objection to new things when there is perfectly good old stuff around. I object to built-in obsolescence and when I buy new things I look for repairability and quality.

And yet I’m not immune to advertising. The Man works very hard to get me to part with my money and Facebook advertising helps The Man enormously. My FB feed is littered with invitations to check out watches. Most of them I ignore because I probably know enough to know the advertised watches are junk. However, now and again very tempting ads pop up.

Recently I’ve received tempting ads for Panzera and Yema, both of which look to be deep discounting on automatics. I’m particularly tempted by the Yema Superman currently on offer for just over €400.

So my question is, is this a good quality watch at a price that would be worth investing in? Would you sooner spend that €400 on a vintage watch if you had one eye on investment?

I know this is a subjective issue, I’m just interested in learning about your attitude to new watches and why you buy them, if you do.

 

Nothing like a new micro brand as a beater wear around the pool watch. But once you have one or two that will do as they drain funds and are not that easy to sell unless taking a 50% hit.

A €400 Seiko would be my choice.

A $260 Luminox is my beater. Bought new by the misses

Edit: Have to add a brand I found and have enjoy and wear just as much as any other watch I own. So nothing wrong with a new watch purchase of a brand outside the square.

https://omegaforums.net/threads/new-watch-new-brand.37211/

 

I too am impressed with a few new watches, but always end up being practical and waiting for a used one to pop up. and they always do

 

It takes discipline! Usually within a couple months second hand or grey market specimens pop up. Just enter your alerts in WatchRecon or WatchPatrol and restrain yourself for a little while. I'm doing the same for the Bell & Ross BR05 now.

Any minute now a horde of huns will descend on this thread vigorously debating whether or not a watch should be regarded as an investment. My humble view on the matter is that (1) investment value never should be your main concern but (2) I understand that you'd rather not loose money on a watch when re-selling it down the road. Having said that, who cares if you loose 100 bucks when re-selling a <$500 watch? That's a nice steak dinner for 2—too bad, but not a disaster. Yes, vintage holds its value better, but only if you manage to get a good deal. If you buy vintage from a dealer, no way you will be able to sell it later for the same amount or more on the forums. Long story short—buy what you like, don't worry about investment value unless it's new Rolex or Patek.

 

+ 1 for this approach.

I have been looking at these options both new and used

Baltic Aquascaphe
Hamilton Khaki Field

 

now you're REALLY gonna draw the hordes into a debate

 

Only new watches I've bought in many years, other than as gifts, are an Orient Tri Star and a Caravel Chronograph. Both excellent for their price range and intended for use rather than prestige.
But since I much prefer smaller vintage watches the Caravel ended up being gifted to a nephew and the Orient seldom leaves its box.

 

I haven't bought a new watch in years now but there are some nice microbrands now popping up, question is with all the Swatch issues will this affect the parts further down the line ?

 

Good advice. To be clear, I see a difference between pure investment where I’m looking for the best possible return against a given risk profile and wanting to make use of cash in a way that I can enjoy and also recoup, hopefully with a return in time. With interest rates so low I see it as a reasonable way of putting money away, and far more interesting / pleasurable than watching it do nothing in a deposit account.

As for patience, again, thank you. You’re right. I don’t need to buy more medium range but ultimately nondescript marques. I should wait and spend more money on the watch I really want, which this week is a birth year railmaster.

 

There is a similar thread on one of those car forums, debating leasing versus buying and why would anyone in their right mind lease a car?

My argument is that:

a) some of us (me) like new stuff and are willing to pay for it and
2) you need dummies like me to buy the stuff new in order to create a second-hand market.

You may thank me later.

OK, so seriously, buying new gives you a warranty, a un-scratched product, and some level of comfort knowing that an expensive service is far down the road. In my case, if I can't save enough money to at the very least pay for a service, then there's no advantage to buying used. And I am a smidgen OCD, so I don't like stuff that's scratched up. Yes, I know, patina, yada, yada.

 

Very fair points, and I have no new watches with box and papers. Having something pristine in the collection would add something, but then would I want to wear it? How would I feel the first time I brush it against a wall? I factor service cost into a watch purchase so that’s not really an issue, but yes, new and shiny and knowing you’re the only owner it has had is nice.

 

You’re very welcome. There’s very few brands with guaranteed “enjoy & recoup”—even when willing to hold on to your watches for a long time. No way to tell what collectors will value 25 years from now. Remember: no one used to care about Daytonas. Even pawn shops refused to take them. If you want a good return on your savings, put them away in an index fund...

 

I bought the speedytuesday #1 and #2 new, because I thought the chance to buy them at a reasonable price used, would be small and a Seamaster SM300 co axial new back in 2015 because I loved it then and I love it now.
I generally buy for myself and have not sold any of my watches apart from one that I never wore and looked better in the pictures than it did on my wrist.
I think buying watches is an essentially an emotive purchase. Buy what you like and can afford and try not to over think it.

 

Well no investment guarantees a decent return - there’s always an element of speculation, but it’s surely fair to say that good quality watches, while going in and out of fashion, maintain a degree of “collectibility”. We don’t know which will be in fashion at any given time, and when something is out of fashion we can’t imagine it ever being in fashion.

If I were buying watches as a speculation I’d probably be after gold / gold plate and square models on the basis that they are out of fashion at the moment and they might represent good value. As it happens I have 3 gold /gp watches because I like them, and no square watches because I don’t like them. I’m only going to buy watches I like - that’s a basic rule for me. And yet, I’m still trying to make sure I don’t pay over the odds, even for something I really like, because if I ever decide to let a watch go, I want to avoid making a loss on it.

 

Do we have to have a hard rule? Can't we buy someone watches and buy some old watches?

 

I prefer vintage military watches (which necessitates buying old) but the modern watches I've bought have been used. I have gotten a couple of good deals on basically as-new expensive watches and if I end up wanting to move these on, it won't really matter to me if I "lose" a couple hundred bucks ... because I'm not viewing them as investments. I think that's a dangerous path.

I don't have a lot of experience with these things in watch-land, but I do have many years of experience with these things in guitar-land. So perhaps that perspective would help here. I never understood why someone would have a problem with buying, say, a war-era Gibson guitar for several thousand dollars, playing it for a few years, and ending up selling it for a few hundred bucks less (if it came down to it). Usually with a decent holding period, you can sell something like that for more than the purchase price. But it's not like you don't get any enjoyment out of the thing while you have it. Isn't that worth something? If it's worth $25/month (or whatever) for me to be able to play and enjoy this piece of history, if I sell it in three years for $900 less than I paid for it then I've broken even.

That's why I think it's dangerous to view things of this nature as "investments." I get zero utility -- other than the return -- out of holding a particular bond, stock, or mutual fund. But people do get utility out of non-financial assets, be they watches, guitars, cars, or whatever else.

My two cents.

 

My two cents would be deposited on the need to actually try something on before I spend any money at all. Even if its a hundred bucks, you should put it on first before opening the wallet.