The Best Affordable Watches Worth Buying

Do high luxury watch prices on social media make you feel like you need 50 grand to start collecting watches? Well, I have good news: you can put together a dangerous collection for under $10k. I’ve been selling luxury watches for over 20 years, and I’ve handled everything from $200 Seikos to an eight-figure Patek Philippe. And I can tell you, at the under-$10k price point, you don’t need ten watches. You need three to five, and each one should serve a purpose. Here’s my guide to affordable watches worth buying today.

For someone with a total of $5,000-$10,000 to spend, I recommend focusing on a few categories:

• Everyday piece – A GADA watch that’s rugged, reliable, and perhaps recognizable.
• Dress piece – Something more elegant, usually with a smaller case, appropriate for pairing with a suit.
• Conversation piece – You definitely want to have something fun in your collection that shows your taste and/or appreciation for history.
• Statement piece – The hey-look-at-me piece in the collection.

Now let’s go through some options for each category.

Affordable Everyday Watches

If I had a thousand bucks to spend on an everyday watch, I’d go with a Tissot PRX. It has a Swiss movement, it looks expensive, and the integrated bracelet gives it a luxurious feel. The PRX Powermatic 80 lists for $850 but you can find used ones for $500.

Then you have the timeless and bulletproof Seiko SP143 diver, which lists for $1,200 but can easily be acquired for under $1,000.

I’ll also mention Longines, and specifically their Spirit Automatic. You get that historical heritage feel, and they’re quite reasonably priced pre-owned–typically $1,500 to $2,000.

Affordable Dress Watches

Let’s talk about the dress watch. The dress watch doesn’t have to be the most expensive. In fact, at this tier, my suggestion has always been vintage.

In the $1,000-$1,500 range there are a number of vintage Omega Seamaster and Universal Geneve White Shadow models you could consider, for instance.

If vintage is not your vibe, you still have good modern options in that same price range. For example, there’s the German-made Nomos Tangente, with its minimalist Bauhaus design, in-house movement, and a pre-owned price tag around $1,200 in time-only form.

And how about Frederique Constant? They’re Swiss-made and have lots of heritage under their belt. The Frederique Constant Slimline in particular can tastefully slide under a cuff, and you can snag a decent one for about $800 (or even less if you choose a quartz model). This is not going to be a showoff watch, unless you lift that cuff up and somebody happens to notice it. And while you’re obviously not getting handcrafted guilloché dials on watches as affordable as this, FC does some nice stamped textures.

Think about what’s going to sing to you first and foremost. I think it’s a flex to put on a $1,500 vintage watch because you value it for what it is–not for what it costs.

Conversation Pieces

As a watch dealer, I appreciate it when true watch lovers get something totally different. Numerous niche brands like Beda, Atelier Wen, Arsene Lippens, Zenteir, and Selten are doing interesting things nowadays, often for around $2,000 or less. If you want to stick to big names, check out the Oris Big Crown Pointer Date. It’s got that retro-aviation military charm.

Hamilton is another name you hopefully recognize, and their Intra-Matic Chronograph is certainly worth a look.

For about $400, Citizen offers several colorful automatic Tsuyosa models. They’re very strong offerings for the price.

But personally, in the $500ish price range, if I had to pick one it would be a time-and-date version of the Hamilton Insta-Chron.

You can even throw in an “optional additional” affordable watch into your collection, like a G-Shock or a Seiko 5, for under $200. Both options are almost universally respected by collectors. Owners of fine luxury watches often find themselves wearing those “beaters” more than they expected. And if that watch breaks into 40,000 different pieces tomorrow, no one’s going to cry about it; you can just buy another. And if you have any money left over, you can get that “statement piece” I mentioned.

Statement Pieces

For $2,500-$3,000, you can choose from several pre-owned Tudor Black Bay models. The Black Bay repeatedly gets mentioned in lists of affordable luxury watches because its value is simply hard to beat.

While $3,000 isn’t enough for a good used Omega Speedmaster Professional anymore, there are numerous other underrated Speedmaster models attainable in that range. How about an automatic 40mm white-dial Speedmaster date model with painted Breguet numerals, for instance?

And while finding a Rolex under $3,000 is tough, if you can up your budget to about $4,000, you should be able to get a decent Rolex Datejust from the 1960s-1970s. That would be a nice way to anchor your collection as your “flex piece.”

We all talk a lot about “horology” in the watch world, but is it really the main driving force behind most watch purchasing decisions? Well, unfortunately it is not–it’s the flex factor. And it’s OK to enjoy that flex factor, but if you combine it with a few of the watches I mentioned earlier, you’ve got yourself a wonderfully rounded collection all for about $8,000.

Strap Options

If you want to keep your watch collection a bit more affordable–roughly $5,000 total or less–you can skip that Black Bay or old Datejust altogether. What you can do instead is focus on quality straps. The easiest way to make a $700 watch look like a $7,000 watch is adding a different strap.

There are different materials that are out there that feel richer and more expensive than a run-of-the-mill leather strap. Numerous artisan strap makers will happily make you a shell cordovan leather watch strap to your specs. Sharkskin, stingray, and even goat leather are also increasingly common these days.

New straps are also an easy and affordable way to add more color to your collection–plus it makes you feel like you have more watches. It really can refresh your excitement, like it’s the day you bought the watch.

Hopefully this has helped explain a path to owning a complete watch rotation for pretty much every scenario. Even if you consider a collection of a PRX, vintage Seamaster, a Hamilton Intra-Matic Chronograph, a Seiko 5 and a Tudor Black Bay 58 to be a “starter collection,” well, it’s the kind of starter collection that actually impresses enthusiasts.

And I recognize that the vast majority of watch collectors out there have collections in this price range or below. The best collection doesn’t mean that it’s the most expensive. In fact, most collectors with six-figure collections today started with collections a lot like that. And if you’re able to avoid the watch collecting addiction that some of us have, it’s a perfectly good place to end, too.