Some random ramblings and I'm looking for advice on the best places to buy pre-owned watches.

I’ve owned quite a few watches over the years, mostly pretty cheap ones and I’ve never bought anything expensive ie costing in the £000s. Apart from the expense (this is serious money for me), the reason I’ve stayed away from expensive watches is that I don’t baby my watches and like to wear them whatever I’m doing – I have been concerned that if I had something pricey on my wrist I might start getting paranoid about it, and become one of those owners who are terrified of their watches getting wet, bashed or scratched!

However, I have been having some thoughts on this along the lines of Time is Passing / Not getting any Younger / Can’t Take Your Money with You, and I’m coming to the conclusion that maybe its time to say ‘What the Hell?’ and splash out on something and if I want to wear a watch worth several £000 whilst working on the car I’ll damn well do so!

I’m thinking of around £3k, pre-owned I presume, Quartz is fine, I love Chronos and I’m a big sucker for Reverse Panda dials. I’m thinking along the lines of Breitling Colt Chrono , Omega SMP Chrono or maybe Planet Ocean. Where are the best places to look for pre-owned watches like this? Obviously I will scanning Sales Corner of course, otherwise Watchfinder seems a good starting point, and Chrono24 is a possibility (though my previous experience of them wasn’t great). Where else is worth a look and who to avoid? I’m going to avoid ebay as I don’t have enough expertise to know what’s real and what’s fake – there’s only one thing stupider than forking out a large amount of money on a watch and that’s forking out a large amount of money on a fake!

Advice gratefully received.