I picked up two watches on my trip to Hong Kong, and the long-term outcomes were exactly opposite what I expected. Let me share some painful lessons for your amusement and edification.

The first watch is one I bought on the show floor. It’s quite nice, actually, with titanium case, mineral crystal, glass display back and pilot-style dial on top of a Chinese ETA/Valjoux 7750 chronograph movement:

There’s no second hand, and the luminosity is negligible, but it’s a handsome and functional watch. I’d been looking for a mechanical stopwatch (aka chronograph) for a while, but the bare ETA 7750 movement is over 300 bucks, so anything using it typically starts at 1,000 or more. (Ludicrous versions go up to 50,000.) 

Not fancy, undecorated but clean and fun to look at. The 7750 is ugly as auto-chrono movements go, but what the hell.

The buttons are simple and clean, no screw-down pretensions here. Ditto for the knurled crown. 

It came on an awful faux-gator strap that I’ve replaced with a ten-dollar one from Target. As you can see, the thickness of the 7750 makes for a tall watch!

So. It keeps good time, looks great, and has the fun-to-play-with mechanical stopwatch. (Observing the implementation of a physical state machine is wonderful if you’ve ever done one in silicon or software!). What’s not to like? Heck, on the show floor it cost me eighty six bucks!

I now wish I’d bought more. Ahh well, I do have the vendor info, and yes I am debating starting a small watch import business. I’d guesstimate that I could sell ‘em for a small profit at around $250 each. Interested?

The second watch is another story altogether. However, it’s late and this post is getting long, so I’ll split it up and do it tomorrow. Suffice it to say that it’s Swiss, I paid too much and got screwed. Sigh. The moral of this story is probably “Cheap Chinese means no regrets. Used Swiss is a bad idea.”