Watches - advice required

[sartorius]

I am considering buying a watch for a close friend as a 40th birthday gift. I know very little about watches though, so would be interested in any commments or recommendations which members might feel able to make. My criteria are as follows:

1. Budget - around GBP2000
2. Style - relatively simple, and not overly large (the recipient has exceptionally slim wrists and a large face would look unattractive I think). He will also prefer a leather strap to a bracelet style.
3. Maker - I have looked at the following so far:

• IWC - the Portuguese Chrono looks very nice but is a little outside my budget
  Tag Carera
  Rolex (they do nothing remotely in my price range with a leather strap, apart from dress watches which are not what I'm after)
  Longines
  Panerai (the styles are simple but I know nothing about the company or their products)

Any (informed) recommendations or comments would be most helpful.

Thank you.

[Gruto]

I would consider Omega as well. From what I read you a get Rolex quality at half price with Omega. Nomos Glashütte is another possibility within your budget. Like Rolex they make their own movements: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomos_Glashütte

[SJX]

Some other suggestions of the top of my head: the IWC Portofino, Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso or Master series and Glashuette Original (the Senator Navigator and possibly others). These three brands offer a good quality to price ratio.

Another brand you can look at is Sinn, which specialises in sports/military style watches which may suit you since you're not after a dress watch.

As for Longines, a particular model is the Legend Diver. It's been fairly popular because of its faithfulness to the original; it's a remake of a 1960s Longines.

Panerai makes good watches, perhaps a bit more expensive than the quality warrants due to their popularity but they can be too popular, especially amongst the yuppie crowd.

[JDelage]

If you want a sport watch, I think that Omega might be your best bet for your budget.

The Panerai are known for being oversized watches. They look big on large wrists, and will completely take over a small / medium wrist.

[sartorius]

Thanks for those helpful suggestions. I will do some further research.

On a related point, what are members' views/recommendations on buying a vintage watch from a second hand dealer? There are couple in the Burlington Arcade in London which I have seen - The Vintage Watch Company and David Duggan.

[JDelage]

I think 2nd hand or vintage watches are a great option, but I would want to buy from a well established, reputable dealer, if possible one that offers a warranty.

[SJX]

Buying vintage is difficult especially for a non-expert as increasingly many vintages watches have been altered or created from a mish mash of parts to produce a specimen in the best condition. This is most prevalent for the very popular vintage pieces like Rolex, Panerai or some military issue watches. One way around it, as another poster recommends, is to buy from a reputable dealer.

[Simon A]

I would consider a "bespoke" option. Dornbleuth & Sohn in Germany only make a few hundred pieces a year, made to order. Father and Son make the movements with 100-year old equipment in-house, they are very well engineered and the finish is excellent. These are classic watches and quite unique, and priced rather well compared to brand-name watches (which are all owned by two or three faceless corporations anyway). www.dornblueth.com

[sartorius]

After some more research I have identified the Zenith Class Automatique as a good option for my friend's birthday. It is more expensive than I had intended but I like the design and I'm told that Zenith are very good value. Could members comment on this model, and on Zenith more generally?

[JDelage]

Zenith is a classic and has a generally very good reputation. I've never owned one, so all I know about them is 2nd hand, but they have a solid reputation.

[Aristide]

Zenith has a very nice in-house movement and a solid reputation. Their strap watches are very handsome and understated. In the past, they supplied movements to Rolex.

[shredder]

Zenith is not really for those seeking flash, perhaps excepting some of the more recent, over-sized models. Traditionally, it has been a brand for those that knew a bit about watches. They were a manufacture before it became rather fashionable to be or become one. Until recently when everyone and their cousin made a mad rush to build (or claim to build) in-house movements of all sorts, Zenith was virtually the only game in town as far as automatic chronograph movements were concerned; they had over a 90% market share.

The question about value for money is a tricky one. Gross margins amongst the better Swiss brands are fairly consistent. Whether they qualify for the manufacture moniker or have a whole army of third party suppliers producing and assembling their watches do not, when all is said and done, really contribute to a meaningful variance in the cost of goods sold. Therefore, it is unlikely that there is an appreciable difference in "value for money" at the time the purchase is made. (Note that I am referring not to perception but to hard numbers here, with the exception of jewelled or over-achieving grande complication models.) However, the future relative value can vary quite a bit, depending on how the secondary market values that specific model from that specific brand, at a given moment in time. The Watch and Jewellery Division has arguably been the weakest link in LVMH's luxury goods stable, so I suppose that it will depend on how well, or poorly, they will nurture that whole business unit in the future.

All that aside, I would be very pleased to receive a Zenith watch. Your friend is very fortunate.

[sartorius]

Having decided on which time piece to purchase I am now trying to research the best source. It has been suprisingly difficult. "Authorised Dealers", who appear to be the only foolproof source for the genuine article (important when you're spending 000s), only offer watches at the Recommended Retail Price, which is apparently set by the manufacturers. I thought this was called price fixing, but apparently it is the same across Europe.

That leaves non-ADs, for whom there seems to be very little in the way of information or references. I wondered whether anyone had any knowledge or experience in this regard. For example, thewatchsource.co.uk offers time pieces at considerably below RRP, but they are an online retailer and I have no idea whether they're legit or not. Has anyone used them?

[JDelage]

Many online dealers are completely legit. The drawback is that in theory they cannot offer manufacturer warranties. Some (most?) manufacturers will still take care of your watch, depending on the cases.

Some authorized dealers will also match the price of the online dealers - but over the phone only, not by email.

A good resource for this type of question is a watch-specific forum. I have found good information on a forum called timezone - specifically contact info for an authorized Omega dealer in the US who gave me a very large discount on a popular model.

Cheers,

JD