Good quality, not prohibitively expensive demagnetiser?

I don't know what "vastly expensive" means, so I'll just tell you what I use:

Vigor Demagnetizer (jewelerssupplies.com)

As watchmaking tools go, this is far from being vastly expensive, but for your situation I have no idea. Pretty much anything is going to be much more expensive than the cheap blue things are...

My demagnitiser is really old. Been using it a lot lately. Especially when sorting parts.

-j

The cheap blue Chinese demagnetizers work just fine for me on the rare occasion I have a magnetized watch. It's not worth buying something expensive given how infrequently I need to use it,

When I am working with microelectronics, I find my tweezers magnetized a lot. Probably why they make carbon fiber tweezers. Low voltage DC can easily magnetize things.

What one really has to watch out for (no pun intended.) are the case closer buttons on cell phone cases and purses. A few weeks ago dad set his phone down next to the box of goat chronograph parts on my desk and made a mess. (looks like the balance survived.) I have to keep my phone on the other side of the desk. The old pre chip credit cards and hotels keys can be subject to these magnetic catches.

One of my flashlights has a magnetic ring on it, which is useful for finding lost parts, which of course then need to be demagnetized.

There is an apocryphal story about the AC/DC wars between Tesla and Edison. Edison wired an upscale community with electric lighting. At the time women wore steel boned corsets. This material is much like watch springs. (Whale bone was worn 100 years earlier in the 18th century and remained in use for the front or busk closing, although the plastics used to make combs was used in the later half.)
Soon it became apparent that these society ladies seemed to have magnetic personalities. Small pins and other small iron objects were sticking to them. One fashion book implies this was a reason women stopped wearing corsets, they were afraid of being electrocuted!

-j

I use one of these, too. Very powerful demagnetiser. I bought one of those cheap blue ones for $12 and it didn't work at all.

I don't even see CRT's in the Salvation Army anymore.

Salvation Army and Goodwill are picky about electronics and furniture. Big and bulky = floor space. Old TVs? They have nicer TVs on the floor for $10 than I have at my house.😲