Rolex Oyster Perpetual or Tudor Pelagos

I may be saying things you already know (and I’m sure many sites online will do a better job explaining this), but:

“High end” watches are mostly mechanical watches, the “movement” refers to the mechanism contained inside the watch (made up of many pieces) that has all the moving parts (except for the hands of the watch) to tell time. These watches don’t use a battery but rather operate fully mechanically (either manually wound or automatically).

With these watches you usually have automatic movements (where the mainspring, which is the power source of the watch, is automatically wound when you wear it (through your arm/wrist movement)), or manual watches (that you must wind every day).

And on top of just telling time you also have complications, which usually make your watch more expensive. Complications are additional things this mechanical watch can do (date, chronograph, perpetual calendar, minute repeater, moon phase, etc) which usually showcase the watchmakers skills, and also are signs of the watchmakers ingenuity (some brands spend a lot of R&D dollars to push things forward).

Some watchmakers make their own movements and invest heavily to control the full watchmaking process, some buy from a producer of “movements” (ETA being a big brand) and then heavily modify them, and then some just use the purchased movement directly. Watches that are made fully “in house”, are usually more expensive, although some heavily modified ETA movements can also get up there. Watch collectors tend to value the “uniqueness” of a watchmaker that does all the work and research into creating movements

So when I say great movements I’m just referring to the quality of either the adjusted movement (some are heavily modified) or the in house movement. Some companies have also been making their own movements for a while ,and even sold their movements to other companies, JLC is a great example of a company that would sell its movements to “higher end” brands, which is interesting. As you can imagine, these watches are less accurate than a battery operated watch (and also require maintenance) so you want a movement that is high quality (COSC certified is a good starting point) so that it will last and be accurate (and some watchmakers also spend a lot making these movements “pretty”, you should check out the back (where you can see the movement) of the A Lange Sohne 1815 flyback chronograph)