awesome and practical. you dont need an overpriced rolex—I bought a rolex in 1985 for 400$ new. Now if you can find a new one- they are 15K (date just). That is insane. A new strap last year was 1800$. Never again. Now I enjoy my hamilton, alpina’s, tissot prx, my tissot le locle COSC I paid 450$ for----yes 450$, ball railroad and several other 500-1500$ watches. and they tell time and look great all for less than 1 overpricced rolex. I dont have to worry about theft, it getting lost–( I replaced the bracelet because it fell off my wrist—it came apart), and if that happened to a 500$ seiko I would be angry but not so frustrated and angry because I can get another one. YOu cant even buy new date justs for under 12-15K. Rolex has just become way overpriced. I would rather have a gold vacheron for the price of a once in my lifetime 400$ watch.
let me tell you about longines. They had a setback-- a huge one- as most brands did from the 80s “quartz crisis”. That is why you see some older rolex and omega quartz watches, they were trying to compete with seiko at the time which was killing all of the old established brands. Look on ebay at all the brands, cyma, eterna, benrus, elgin, for example- many swiss brands, gone. Some like bulova were huge and almost didn’t make it. Longines I recall was very prominent in the olympics in the 60s-70s for “longines time” You see omega, tissot and others, and there were many tv commercials for longines. Then it almost died. It took longines 30 years to really recover—which they have and are—and are becoming the big respected brand they were back in the day. I suspect you will see prices go up up up, demand go up up up on all longines products. They have been around for a long time, everything they make is excellent and the fit and finish is superb. They use (mostly) their own in house movements, and in short, you cannot go wrong with a longines product. In fact, I have been buying alpina lately—and now will start adding several longines to my collection. WHY? quality, value, style, and in short I like them. I think Rolex and most other “luxury/popular watches” are way overpriced and I would put a longines up against a rolex anyday. That is what I think of them. FYI I have taken classes and worked as a watchmaker on and off and do my own overhauls on vintage watches so I do know somewhat from where I speak.
The watch market is very strange and subject to “what others think” so I would just ignore what others think and get what you like. I would never buy a watch as an investment unless it was an investment like a 100-500K watch—but then it would never be worn or see the light of day- so that isn’t my thing and is way beyond my capability. I buy watches to wear and enjoy—not because they are the “in” thing or others like them. GOod luck.