My uncle handed my cousin a 15-year-old quartz Titan for his engineering graduation—trying to quietly buy him his first real automatic watch

My cousin just graduated and landed his first corporate job, and my uncle proudly passed down his own 15-year-old scratched-up Titan quartz watch. My cousin was super polite and thanked him, but I’ve known this guy forever—he’s spent the last three years obsessively watching horology videos on YouTube, dissecting automatic movements, exhibition casebacks, and sweeping second hands. He’s been silently dying for a Seiko 5 or a Citizen Tsuyosa, but fresh entry-level salary means dropping 30k+ in a showroom just isn't happening right now.

​I want to surprise him with his first proper mechanical piece to celebrate his job. The issue is the pre-owned watch market in India is full of landmines—there are way too many fake "Franken-watches" with repainted Mumbai-special dials floating around Instagram and random forums.

​have been hunting on verified peer-to-peer marketplaces

​For anyone who built a starter watch collection on a budget: would you go with a clean pre-owned Seiko 5 SRPE series as a daily driver, or is holding out for a Citizen Tsuyosa worth the extra cash?