With a 5k budget would you prefer...

A few years ago id have gone for the usual trilogy of diver, gada and dress. Now I'd only go for one very good watch. I guess there's no latter without the former, though. The whole journey.

Probably a GS a that price, or a recent preowned Speedmaster. Or I save a tad more and out my name down for a 36mm explorer.

C. is pretty much me in a nutshell. I've never spent over $500, with most under $200. 

The more watches, the less time and more servicing you’ll have. One luxury watch always wins in my eyes. 

Depends where you are in your watch journey. If you're just starting out, consider the funds an investment in understanding your preferences and be prepared to lose some/all of it. B and C will be the choices here. 

However, if you've collected for a while and/or set on buying a highly desirable piece from the outset and it consumes all of your budget, then be sure to see it 'in the metal', before deciding yes or no. A covers this option.

B and C for me, the possible combinations are too many to write out. 

I could get that #tudor black bay chrono that keeps batting its eyelashes at me.

AquaTerra or IWC MKXX. 

2nd thoughts. 
Grand Seiko 9F, Sinn104 white dial and try to get a pre owned Breitling super ocean orange dial with what’s left. 

Solid approach 👍

Buy some stuff that would total to $5k or just under/over it. A Titoni Seascoper 600 in steel. 

(Though I'll take the one in black)

A Tudor 1926

A Steinhart Ocean 39 GMT, perhaps. 

Diver, dress and a GADA piece with lots of WR. 

For me I don’t have a specific watch around $5k that I like. The Speedy is a bit too big for me, the Aqua Terra and Seamaster I don’t like the designs, and other nitpicking I could do lol. I’d probably get 2 watches, which is kind of what I did. Both used, a BB58 on a strap for $2500 and a GS SBGW231 for around $3000. Slightly over but worth it to me.

Down payment for my grail watch: a Vacheron Constantin Patrimony in platinum. 

As for me, I like to have one really fine piece, one mid-tier GADA, a beater, and a few cheap fun ones. If I had to shave down my collection to just 5k, I'd keep the Radiomir Black Seal, the Certina DS1, the Scubadude, and the Timex Mickey Mouse. 

I went with Option B because the watches on my current wish list are generally between $1500 and $3000, and I could get two or three of them with $5000 to spend. 

Even if I was starting my collection over, I could be very happy with a two or three watch collection with a $5000 budget. 

Have done them all, at least twice. Currently, option C

My mate had 20 classic cars as part of his investment portfolio which was cool however he never drove any of them, you can only drive one at a time. His 20 are now down to 2 cracking cars, same value as the 20 but he drives and appreciates them both. I think I’m getting to the stage where I want a watch that I can wear in the garage, one where I can use to travel and 2 or 3 high quality watches having a load of lower value watches just means that there will be a load of watches I don’t get round to wearing.

For me it would be a Grand Seiko quartz, a Hamilton field watch (cant make my mind up on which one) With the left over cash a Islander dive watch, a Casio G and Orient Bambino dress in 38mm.

I mean, it really depends on where you are as a collector and what the market offerings look like. 2022 saw a number of very cool collaborations on the lower-end of the spectrum.

But, it's really all relative...

Nivada Grenchen Super Antarctic, Damasko DSub50, Longines Record

I could be very happy with these 3 for $5000.

This ALMOST fits my current collection. 
 

• Hamilton Khaki Field Automatic (work rewards + $50)
• Don’t own
• Oris Aquis cal 400 ($2250)
• Tissot PRX (work rewards plus $200)
• Longines Spirit Zulu Time ($2150) 

$4650 (plus $1000 in work rewards) bought a slightly higher end 4 of 5 watches you listed. Now that I have this collection (plus a few others), The $5K budget would go towards a Tudor Pelagos. 

I would suggest splitting the $5k into a dress watch, sports watch, and a GADA watch.

There are so many ways you can build that collection of three watches that you just have to determine which of those categories is your primary watch.

Let's say you want the sports watch to be your primary and you want to apply most of your budget to that category. Then you allocate $4k to the sports watch and leave yourself $1k for the other two categories.

Plenty of great choices in the $4k range for a great sports watch. Myself, I would choose the Longines Ultra-Chron on bracelet for around $3.7k...

Since that takes up a significant amount of the budget, I would then need to be careful with considering the choice for a dress watch, and so would likely choose the Baltic MR01 for $600...

Now I am left with about $700 for a GADA watch. Again, lots of choices here, but I would likely go for the Casio G-Shock MT-G at around $700...

There you have it. Now my wrist size is 7.5 inches, so if you have a wrist that is below 7 inches, you would likely have a different set of options to choose from. Either way the Baltic works as it is a 36mm watch and it's OK for a dress watch to be a bit smaller especially if you are wearing it on a nice bracelet as that will make the watch wear larger on your wrist.

 QED

For 5k I can just about afford my favorite watch - the SBGA413 from GS. So it is a nobrainer

I would like to buy about 5 watches of different categories to expand the variety

Tissot PRX Powermatic 80 ($650) - Sport

Hamilton Khaki Field ($575) - Field 

Seiko Prospex SPB155 ($725) - Dress

Longines Conquest ($1250) - Dive

Rado Golden Horse ($1800) - Everyday 

I think it depends on if you like variety, or would rather a more “damn what’s that?” watch. 
 

I’d say maybe get 1 or 2 sub 1K watches and then have a look around to see what style you would get and what brand you would pick.