Quoted from rai:I’m thinking about buying a mechanical watch. Never owned one, just curious if they require much maintenance and upkeep and how often or how much does that cost?
Is it better to buy a new watch and is there a good place to shop?
They run best with maintenance but many modern ones will run beyond their service intervals (they'll just start to perform worse). Some brands are up to ten year service intervals. Most watches seem to recommend service every five years or so.
Service cost depends a lot on the movement, both its complexity and whether the movement is a third-party option (which means parts are easily available for independent watchmakers) or in-house to the brand (which, depending on the brand's behavior, can be hard for independents to source parts to and the in-house watchmakers are usually more expensive).
Broadly speaking, most watch servicing costs between $100 and $1,000 (assume more for complications like chronographs). I'd say simple watches relying on something like the ETA 2824 or Sellita SW200 (both are third-party movements common to many luxury watches) is roughly in the $200-400 range for service pricing. Note this covers standard maintenance but if you have damage (like needing a new crystal) you'll see some additional costs for those components since they generally don't need replaced.
I do not believe it is better to buy new (at least with luxury watches). Watches are less like pinball machines and more like cars, aside from some very hot models or brands. So, you can often find significant savings via a used purchase, particularly if you explore older models. If uncomfortable buying from a private seller (e.g., worries about authenticity) there are a lot of established used online storefronts (you'll pay more than direct private but they'll often have serviced the watch and authenticate it before sale since they don't want their reputation damaged for selling a counterfeit).
If you want new checking a major grey market supplier like Jomashop can often get you a good price (places like Jomashop get models from retailers that aren't selling, or aren't selling fast enough, so a place like Jomashop buys in bulk and then sells to customers for less than the AD would); authentic with all the new items (box and papers) but you'll usually lose the manufacturer warranty and the grey dealer warranty is generally shorter.
If you just want a mechanical watch, non-luxury, you can buy a number of them cheap enough that it would be more affordable to trash them and buy another when they give out rather than service them (in fact servicing might just be dropping in an entirely new movement rather than actually taking apart and cleaning the old one... changing a movement out is a lot faster). Seiko does still occupy some of this space, particularly with their Seiko 5 line, but Orient is a good option if you want an established brand with lots of choices.