Best graduation watches

Sapphire at a price where most first watches carry mineral glass, 200m behind a screw-down crown, and an in-house hacking automatic with a three-year warranty. It will look almost new at thirty.

At 41.8mm and 46.8mm lug-to-lug it fits most wrists, and on a leather strap it goes to an interview. Orient publishes no US service price, the one thing Seiko below does better.

On paper this is the best value in the category and it is not close: sapphire and a hacking, hand-windable in-house caliber at a price where Seiko still fits Hardlex. Orient's three-year warranty is longer than Hamilton's or Tissot's.

A 38mm field watch at 11.1mm thick is the most versatile shape there is: it works with a suit and a T-shirt, fits almost any wrist, and the 80-hour reserve means a watch taken off on Friday is still running on Monday.

Sapphire, 100m and an antimagnetic Nivachron hairspring. Hamilton's two-year warranty is the shortest here.

Hamilton fits Nivachron across the Khaki Field line — an antimagnetic hairspring, addressing the failure mode that used to send affordable mechanicals to the bench. This is a watch designed around the twenty-year case.

The Seiko 5 field case is a smart, legible 39.4mm watch rated 100m, and the 4R36 inside it has the lowest published mechanical service price there is — a first watch with a known running cost.

Hardlex rather than sapphire is the trade, and three years of warranty.

The 39.4mm case reads small, but the 48.1mm lug-to-lug does not — this wears longer than its diameter suggests. Measure your wrist before you buy on the diameter alone.

If the budget is tight, this is the most durable specification available at the lowest level we cover: sapphire and 200m on an automatic.

Timex does not name the caliber or publish service prices, and the one-year warranty excludes the crystal, strap, case and battery. Tough watch, thin paperwork.

Sapphire and 200m for the money is real. What Timex does not publish is the caliber — which means you cannot look up what an overhaul costs before you buy, and that is exactly the number this site exists to check.

For a graduate heading to another country for work or study, a 24-hour hand set to home time is the most useful complication there is. The SSK023 puts it in a 39.4mm field case rated 100m.

Same published $176 overhaul as a plain Seiko 5. Hardlex and 13.6mm thick are the compromises.

Identical movement and identical service cost to the SSK001 in a case 3mm narrower. If the 42.5mm SSK001 is too much watch, this is the same purchase in a size more wrists can carry.

Some people want a watch, not a hobby. The Chandler runs on light, needs no battery and no servicing, is rated 100m, and carries Citizen's five-year warranty — the longest on this page.

Mineral crystal and a 37mm case. It is the smallest and the least demanding watch here.

37mm, 18mm lugs, 100m, no battery, five years of cover. There is very little here to go wrong and almost nothing that will date.