Do your research properly and you could be the proud owner of a beautiful and valuable timepiece.

Many people in the trade will look at eBay because they will find some unbeatable great deals. The key word is knowledge. The more you know about the product you are after, the more you will know if, when and how to find a good deal.

Some time ago a friend of mine was offered a Parmigiani watch. My friend thought it was the aim of a practical joker. He thought Parmigiani was a cheese or a dish. As he didn’t know that this brand is one of the top watch brands in the world, he missed on a great opportunity.

What do we need to look at and where does a watch come from? Some watches advertised state - Swiss made - but they are not. Other wording used that stretch the truth are: sapphire crystal, automatic movement and water resistant. In reality, some watches are not water resistant at all, the sapphire crystal is a normal piece of glass and the automatic movement is a cheap version made in China that will break down at the earliest possible opportunity. It is impossible to tell the quality of a watch from a picture posted on the Internet and it is impossible to tell quality even with the real item unless you have the right tools to test glass, water resistance and movement. 

I should also point out (BEWARE) that a number of Swiss made brands are in fact made in China and only assembled in Switzerland.

There is not a great watch ownership tradition in UK like our counterparts across the channel. We should not be fooled by names that sound like an ice cream brand. We should do our research on the brand of our interest. All genuine watch brands have a web site these days. If there is no web site good chances are that the brand is very much a "Mickey Mouse" brand (with all respect to Mickey Mouse, of course. It is also worth looking at -Whois- to find out when the website was created, by whom and where the name was originally registered. A 200 old Swiss brand went out of business in the 70s. The brand name was bought by a Spanish firm. They created a new web site in 1999 and they re-launched the brand claiming that it is over 200 years old. The name on its own is over 200 years old but it is a brand new firm and those the name alone guarantee the original quality and craftmanship? Many brands went out of business in the '60s and '70s and several old brand names have been revived in recent years. The new owners of old brand names may thus use the same name as the original brand but quality, design and tradition is just not the same. The new watches are made with cheap components from China and so the old saying goes: the do not make them the way that they used to be.

Another old saying goes: if a deal is too much of a good deal, it is not a good deal at all. A good automatic movement (Swiss or Japanese) - good quality case (even made in China) - good sapphire crystal are costly enought components to make even the most average of watches cost over £120 retail and £60 trade.

There are plenty Forums talking about watches, but you have to distinguish the passionate from the experts. A lot of experts are in the pocket of a brand, and some Forum are sponsored by a specific brand. It is worth looking and asking questions at more than one Forum, if you can. Feedbacks can be generated by friends; before you purchase a watch DO a lot of research on the brand and the seller, especially if you have never heard of them. Don't assume, in some cases, that because you have never heard of it - the brand is not as good as more well known brands.