I bought my first used watch!

I have been debating the idea of buying used mechanical watches for some time. I've always held back however because I am not completely comfortable with not knowing the history of a piece and everything it has been through. Now I know the standard advice in these cases is "buy the seller, not the watch"; so that is exactly what I tried to do for my first venture.

To clarify, I use the terms "used" and "vintage" differently. To me, a used watch is still relatively recent in terms of having spare parts readily available and in production, whereas a vintage piece is more of a specialty item needing much more research and knowledge to properly acquire and service if needed. Before anyone gets wound up (pun intended), I know the terms can be synonymous, but it's just the way I use the words in lieu of debating what is considered vintage and what is not. All this to say I bought a used SARB033...

I had my eye on the SARB035/033 for some time. Sadly, by that point it had already been discontinued. This I could only find used references and they were selling for just under twice what it used to cost new! Now this is nothing new, that's just basic market economics, but it deterred me from getting a SARB for over a year. That was until it popped back into my feed on social media, and I was hooked... again...

I've written other posts where I go on about how the price of a watch has less to do with the watch and more to do with the experience and emotions you get from owning the watch. So I decided to take my own advice and just accept that if I wanted to experience this piece I just had to bite the bullet and pay the price. So off on a hunt I went!

I do have one rule I've decided to stick to for used pieces, and that is that it must come with the original box. Unfortunately for an "affordable" Seiko the market is about 50/50 on people that kept the box and papers. But eventually I did find a seller who had both. Better yet he had recently serviced the watch and had the receipt as well! When I met with the them in person I was delighted to find out they were the original owner and bought in Korea no less. This puppy came straight out of a duty free airport in Asia.

Now from the non-HD pic above you can see the condition was pretty good already. But I had already bought my first used watch so I figured what the hell, let's repolish and rebrush this sucker. And I did exactly that. It was a bit painstaking but it turned out quite well. Honestly the worst part was changing the crystal which had microscratches on it (yes, sapphire will scratch!) And required waiting a few weeks for parts.

I decided I wasn't much for the bracelet despite it being very decent for Seiko standards. This watch is made for straps IMO, so that's how it rolls now.

The pic above has the old crystal on the left and the new one on the right. Unless you're a specific OCD like me you can't tell the difference really. But if you really look closely you can see a 1/100th of a difference, and that matters to me! Hahaha

To really test my limits I also decided to regulate this one. I'm proud to say I got the beat error down to 0ms and accuracy within +3sec/day. Not bad for a guy with a toothpick.

Anyways, this was a good experience overall. I'm sure many have had bad ones, but this gave me the courage to try other used pieces. Maybe even an expensive ubiquitous black face dive watch that I've been talking alot about too.

Have any of you had any fun adventures buying used watches?!