[tony20009]

Perhaps the most important thing to consider -- aside from just liking the looks of watch -- is the ease of owning it. Rolex, PP, VC, AP and JLC have many if not all the other fancy brands beat on that front. By and large, so long as we are talking uncomplicated watches, any watchmaker can service and repair them.

Servicing a watch in many ways is like getting service/maintenance work done on a car. Mostly, they change the lubricants inside the thing and clean it. Also they check for wear and adjust the timing if needed. There's nothing conceptually difficult about doing those things, but some makers use parts that require proprietary tools to do those sorts of things. ALS and FPJ are two such makers.

Omega used to be among the group of "easy to own" watches and to some extent, if one avoids the co-axial escapement movements, they still are. The co-axial escapement is a wonderful thing for the point of it is to reduce wear and thus extend the time one should go between servicing. It's the reason Omega offer a four year warranty on co-axial escapement watches.

JLC, PP (mostly), Rolex and a few others are easy to service because the parts and tools a watchmaker may need are readily available. Rolex on the other hand uses parts and designs that haven't changed in years and years. Those two attribues translate directly into money in the watch owner's pocket, for just as with cars, the maker will charge a hell of a lot more for service/repairs than will your local watchmaker. AP is perhaps the most notoriously expensive on their servicing: most folks I know get bill from AP around $1500 for servicing, nearly double the cost of most of the rest. Fortunately, AP don't use arcane parts and your local watch guy can do the work in most cases.

The ease of ownership thing is the major plus ETA movements has going for them. They are so ubiquitous that, like Rolex, any watchmaker will have no trouble servicing them. The current concern with ETA movements, however, is that ETA/Swatch are making individual parts harder to come by. The upside to the ETA movements is that they are such durable work horses that one can often go well beyond the recommended service windows before they actually need to be serviced.

One last thing, regarding recommended servicing frequency: use good judgement. If nothing's wrong with the watch, and it's worn (or at least operated) at least once a month, there's not much need to have it serviced. If you see it gaining/losing time more than the allowed amount, have it serviced. Obviously, if it won't work, you need to have it serviced.

All the best.

Note: the above is written with the needs and concerns of a non-collector in mind. Clearly, collectors don't need me to tell them this sort of thing and their concerns and values about what's important and what's not will differ from those of a typical watch owner.