Perhaps I'll elaborate in that case. I believe newcomers to the hobby of vintage collecting typically think of brands that happen to be famous and popular today - Rolex and Omega. And when they get slightly deeper into the hobby, they branch out to other significant yet slightly less well known brands like Longines, Universal Geneve and Heuer. Are there many other brands out there? Absolutely. But I feel these few brands collectively occupy a significant portion of mind share in this audience.
Now, I've been following the market only for the past 24-30 months, but in that time I have seen a lot of references across these brands move higher - many Seamaster references, almost all Speedmaster references, Longines time only watches from the 40s-50s, many models from UG, and Heuer in general. To shop within this price range, one needs to hunt either the ignored/not-so-hot model lines of popular brands, or simply within brands that aren't in the limelight - what you said, basically.
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