[tony20009]

Preface:
If you are one of those watch shoppers whom I can easily relate -- someone who can buy a watch in ten minutes flat by trying it on, and saying "I'll take it" or who knows without reservation that "it's not the one," you need not read this post.

General
Held at gunpoint and forced to choose a price range from which to select a watch, I'd sooner spend ~1200 or less or I'd spend ~$9K or more. That's not to say I'm unaware of exceptions, but overall, those are the price brackets I find most satisfying. I can't stand watch shopping in the mid-range price brackets because nearly all of them fall into a handful of basic categories, key attributes of which just don't appeal to me:

• Cost more than the priciest low end pieces --> perform no better.
• Cost more than the priciest low end pieces --> offer no visual features that are not proportionally "worth" the premium (over a low end alternative) the maker charges for them.
• Almost invariably "skimp" on something to keep the watch in the mid-range instead of tipping into the high-end.
  • Focus first on form than function. Consider a mid-range chronograph for example. One can get Geneva stripes and some beveled edges in plenty of mid-range watches. But in a chornogaph jumping minutes, an adjustable, synchronized brake and clutch*, or even precisely honed gear teeth with a horizontal clutch in order to eliminate the "chrono seconds jump" are rarely found.** I don't know of any mid-range chronos that have those features.
    
    One can't very well tout, as mid-range makers do, refinement and attention to detail while at the same time choosing a design that forces less refinement overall in the product produced. I wouldn't write that if mid-range makers looked down-market in their promotional messages, but they don't, they look up-market. And to me, that means offering the up-market design and engineering, but skimping on the decorative stuff. Mid-range makers do exactly the opposite.
    
    *Note:
    To be fair, plenty of chronos allow one to synchronize the brake and clutch by adjusting both levers independently. I don't know that any mid-range pieces do it by coordinating the geometry of the brake lever with the clutch arm so that the two are brought into synchronicity using one screw adjustment.
    
    **Note:
    Makers use a vertical clutch to solve the "engagement jump" issue, but doing so necessarily results in a thicker watch, which is inherently less elegant looking overall.

"Worth" is, of course, highly subjective. If a mid-range watch offers an aesthetic feature that just doesn't exist on a affordable watch and one "has to have" that feature, well, assuming that watch is the lowest priced one available, I guess it's "worth it."

"Skimping" is also difficult to gauge, but what it amounts to is a watch maker's variation on having their cake and eating it too. I offered above a few examples of skimping as it pertains to chronographs. Another example, one which pertains to any type of watch, is the use of a presentation back to show off some Geneva stripes and a shiny bevel here and there. Now from where I sit, Cote de Geneve, bevels, chamfers, poli noir, brouillage, perlage, etirage, dressage, along with where those treatments are applied don't matter until they are applied in a sophisticated enough way that their presence on the movement means something, at which point there's a good reason to install a see through caseback.

Many mid-range makers, however, will install a presentation caseback so that consumers can see the Geneva waves on the major bridges/plates. The thing is that while the movement does have the waves, on a mid-price watch, they got there like this:

.

Okay, no problem with that. I'm not going to be a snob about handmade stripes vs. machine made, but neither am I going to "wet my britches" over the fact that a maker stuck a piece of metal under a grinder and scraped away some metal so as to make a wavy pattern. Rather than belabor that, let's move on.

Is the lower overall case strength as a result of a crystal caseback rather than a metal one something I should be happy about? Should I be pleased that both the front and back of my watch are now exposed to the risk of impact and/or surface damage? All that so I can see a few machine cranked out stripes on a movement that otherwise shows few or no other finishing refinement. What else is there to the movement's finishing that gives me a reason to want to see it?

To hell with that! Put a metal caseback on the thing, skip the Geneva striping, charge a lower price or install a more accurate and more precise movement.

Another thing I absolutely hate about shopping in the mid-range is that I have to go out of my way to get details about the watch, be it the movement, case, dial, etc. I can't tell you how often I've asked a salesperson or customer service agent a question and they just don't know and have no place from which to get the answer, other than the same resources I have. (It happens too often to chalk it up to the person being new every time I ask.) And this is in watch stores, not Macy's or Neiman Marcus or another store wherein salespeople are basically there but not necessarily experts on the merchandise they sell.

Sample questions I might ask range from easy ones that have "yes/no" answers to those that require specific awareness of basics to those that ask for an informed opinion or representation of the maker's motivations:

• Have the countersinks been polished?
• What types of finishing is on the unseen portions of the movement?
• Is the movement plated with anything?
• Which variant of the movement is in the watch? Standard, elaborated, or top?
• Which (or what supplier's) formulation of superluminova is used in this watch?
• What is the base metal used for gold looking gear wheels?
• Why did they leave the column wheel exposed?
• Please explain the design approach used for the self-adjusting hammers and clutch. (Not a question I expect them to answer off the top of their heads, but one for which I expect them to have access to an accurate and comprehensive answer.)
• Is the dial foil covered or engraved?
• How is the case made?
• Who made the ebauche/movement and who performed the finishing?

You don't know and have no way to quickly find out? Okay, well that is what it is. I was just asking. Have a good day...

The short is that I find it very hard to buy mid-range watches on impulse, which is mostly how I how I end up buying any mid-range watch. Mid-range makers are so busy trying to seem like they are more 'this or that' than they truly are that folks who know they aren't "all that" but who still just want the simple truth lose interest. Countless are the nice mid-range watches I've not bought simply because by the time I get home (or to the hotel) to check, I just say, "Oh, screw it; I have plenty of nice watches already. I need to buy that watch like I need another hole in my head."

I could check the website or call the maker just as well as the salesperson can, only to find the info isn't there. I ask salespeople/customer service reps because I happened by the store (happened onto your website) and noticed this watch, and I thought "well if they can give me the "411" on this thing, as long as I don't learn anything unexpected, I'll buy it because it looks cool and different from what I'm used to seeing from this maker."

Despite the above, there are watches that strike me as excellent choices in the mid-range, excellent enough that as top quality time telling devices that also have first rate build quality, one must spend at least five times the money to get anything mechanical that's actually better built (in a way that'll show it's worth to anyone other than people who have specialized needs) and better at keeping time. The uncomplicated watches that meet that standard are generally the entry level pieces from big name makers:

• Omega's co-axial watches that can be had (today) priced between $2.5K and $3K, all of which are chronometers.
• Anyone's ETA-inside, Sellita-inside or Soporod-inside (or other reputable Swiss or German 3rd party movement maker) chronometer grade watch that prices below $2.5K.

I didn't mention Tag as being among that group because I haven't examined their watches lately. The last time I looked, their entry level pieces were expensive versions of stuff one could get for less, and their non-entry level, expensive watches that represented big compromises from what one could get for not a lot more money. That's not quite as "on point" with Tag's entry level chronographs, which, undeniably is the type of watch to buy from Tag.

Note too that I'm not at all saying Tags aren't nice watches. I'm not saying that because they are in fact very nice watches. I just find that their uncomplicated models cost a few hundred more than they need to/should and because my observation is that they are solid examples of the first bullet point at the start of this post.

Why do I say that? Consider this...at $2K you cannot get a chronometer grade, uncomplicated Tag. At $2.5K you can get a chronometer grade Omega with their co-axial escapement. And Omega warrants the the thing for two years longer (twice as long) than Tag does its $2K watch. (I'm not saying one needs the warranty; I'm saying that Omega has enough faith in their watch to offer it.)

So, by now, I've written about the low-ish end of the mid-range price points. It's natural that one might ask about the top end and the middle. Well, all I can say about the middle is that that's where the "issue" I just described re: Tag vs. Omega gets even worse. At the upper end of the mid-range, things are a bit better.

Things were a couple years ago a bit better at the upper end of the mid-range than they are now. What signaled the difference? Rolex discontinuing the Air King is pretty much what did it. The Air King (AK) was an ~$4K dateless Rolex that had inside exactly the same "stuff " as the dateless Sub, Explorer I and Milgauss, watches that cost about double what the AK did, and that had exactly the same build quality features as do those pricier watches. (If you are in the market for a ~$4K watch, I suggest getting an AK. It'll serve you as well as any Rolex and discontinuance will make it a collector's item sooner or later.)

The mid-range got worse when the AK disappeared because that instantly allowed the mid-range to shift upward to about $6K, but the watches in that range are not any different than they were the day before Rolex announced the AK's end of production. The result is that whereas the big names used to have to keep their mid-range somewhere around $4K, they now charge more like $5K to $6K, give or take. That means value conscious folks need to look "off range" to makers that don't have nearly as wide a distribution network to find great buys.

So where does that leave one to look for good values? Well this is when one really needs to know more about oneself and what one expects than one needs to know about watches. It's not hard to find a good watch in the upper-mid price brackets. There's just no such thing as a "bad" $4K+ watch. (LOL) The things to think about are

• Ease of use and service - Must one send the watch to the maker for service or can a local guy do it and get parts from the maker if need be?
• Does one prefer brand cachet or watch functionality?
• Is "that one detail" (whatever it is -- be it styling and/or functional) worth enough to you that you'll pay two or more times what the same maker will charge for exactly the same watch without "that detail?"

So as you can tell if you've gotten this far, there are, for my taste, just too many compromises in the mid-price space. Better in my mind to spend a good deal less for not all that much difference, or spend a good deal more and get a whole lot of difference.


All the best.