I've got a thing for what I like to think of as "functional art". That being the case, I've always desired a very visibly skeleton-faced (As much of the workings visible as possible) mechanical watch. In browsing eBay, the most appealing ones I've found are all marriage watches using early-mid 20th century movements in hand-made cases. Thing is, these go for absurd amounts of money. One I was really interested in ended the other day for close to a grand. Let's just say, that's out of my budget. Since I last looked (many many years ago), it seems skeleton faced watches have become very trendy and there are thousands of listings for cheap chinese watches with maybe 1-2 gears barely visible and a bunch of poorly done etching to make it look like more internals are visible. I have no interest in these. The third option seems to be Lower priced modern automatic mechanical watches that are a bit more skeletonized than the cheap chinese ones... but are in the $100-300 price range, and of unknown (to me) quality (Stuhrling, Invicta). A strike against these is that the brand name is usually boldly struck across the face of the watch, and that detracts from the appearance a great deal in my opinion. And the last option... that seems the most likely to work out for me is the rare vintage Skeleton that comes up... that aren't high dollar names like Omega. Recently I almost purchased a "Caravelle", but lost at the last minute. These vintage skeletons can be almost as appealing to me as the marriage watches when I find one that I like the looks of, and also fall right in my budget usually ($50-200 on the handful I've seen end recently), but again the problem that I don't know (and usually can't find any information about) the quality... and from what I'm hearing service will be almost necessary upon arrival unless the seller serviced it himself before selling (Not usually the case on these lower priced vintages)... which is an unknown expense (seen people saying it'll be anywhere from $75-150... or more)... which may drive the prices up almost to the low end cost of the more attractive "marriage" watches.
So... Basically... is there any easy way to quickly judge which vintage watches are of good quality? Is there a more reliable way to know what a service on a running but not recently serviced watch of <$200 value would cost? Are the watches from brands like Sturhling and Invicta of good quality or not? Is it feasible to learn independently how to service one's own watch after investing in a set of tools and the necessary lubricant if one is quite mechanically inclined? Any other advice for someone in my position?
So... Basically... is there any easy way to quickly judge which vintage watches are of good quality? Is there a more reliable way to know what a service on a running but not recently serviced watch of <$200 value would cost? Are the watches from brands like Sturhling and Invicta of good quality or not? Is it feasible to learn independently how to service one's own watch after investing in a set of tools and the necessary lubricant if one is quite mechanically inclined? Any other advice for someone in my position?
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