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Re:Inside Rolex's Manufacturing Facilities (2015) by pc86 on Monday January 23, 2017 @11:01AM (#13463063)
It's hard to find anything "really good" in the sub-1k price spectrum. You can get great, functional Quartz watches for less than $100. You can get nice automatics for $100-250 but that are nothing special mechanically. You can start getting very good automatics for $3k or so. That void in the middle is almost entirely garbage, either rip off "homage" watches using inferior parts or stuff like Christopher Ward.
Re:Inside Rolex's Manufacturing Facilities (2015) by dagw on Monday January 23, 2017 @11:10AM (#13463136)
That void in the middle is almost entirely garbage

I think you are being a bit harsh. You can get some perfectly fine mechanical watches at the 500 euro mark. Brands like Certina, Hamilton, Seiko and (to a lesser extent) Victorinox have several models in that price range which are perfectly well made.

Re:Inside Rolex's Manufacturing Facilities (2015) by Mikeb85 on Monday January 23, 2017 @01:51PM (#13464767)
A lot of those just use ETA parts. Not that it's a bad thing, but overpriced IMO. Seikos are quality and good value, I have one, but of course there is a certain prestige in having a 'Swiss' watch.
Re:Inside Rolex's Manufacturing Facilities (2015) by pc86 on Monday January 23, 2017 @12:19PM (#13463790)
I am probably being too critical. I was thinking a little higher than 500, too. If you've got $1500 to spend, your best bet is to either buy 3 Hamiltons or save up another $2k for a Speedmaster, if you're going for value per dollar.
Re:Inside Rolex's Manufacturing Facilities (2015) by anjc on Monday January 23, 2017 @12:05PM (#13463645)
I think Seiko 5's are special given the price and the standards adhered to.
Re:Inside Rolex's Manufacturing Facilities (2015) by tiatia on Monday January 23, 2017 @04:23PM (#13466172)
"You can start getting very good automatics for $3k or so."

For 3k you are either looking for something extremely fancy or you are already paying for 2k for the brand. Below a few brands, some very old, all of them use swiss made mechanical automatic movement. I don't remember having been in an airport and not having seen Rolex advertisement. But someone is paying for this advertisement. And again, if you buy from a dealer he may have something like a 100% mark up.

http://www.archimede-uhren.de/

https://shop.laco.de/

http://www.ebay.de/usr/erkahund

https://www.steinhartwatches.de

http://www.stowa.de

Here is an estimate of Rolex cost vs price and it is close what I suspected. " by gathering publicly available prices for similar products, we can estimate that the production cost of an average stainless steel Rolex watch retailing at USD 5,000 is less than USD 1,000. Maybe even less than USD 750."

https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-it-actually-cost-Rolex-t...

I don't say don't buy one. But understand that you pay 80% of the cost for the brand. If you need the brand, buy it. If you just like the mechanics you can get a very good watch for a tiny fraction of the price.