What time is it? Watches and horology

I wouldn’t put money into watches in the expectation that they will gain value. Some do, most don’t, you and I probably have no way of knowing which ones will, and the market looks like it might be shaky both short and long term. There’s a lot of oversupply right now and a whole generation of young people who don’t need or care for expensive mechanical watches.

Not an expert but if you just want to make an investment then don’t buy a watch. I’d personally use a lot more tax efficient investment vehicle than buying an asset outright on which you incur both income tax and VAT. Sorry that’s a boring answer.

Rolex 16570, preferably tritium dial. If you can go higher vintage Daydate 18xx series. Buy from a reputable seller (!!) and make sure all the parts are original and non-service, make sure dial lume matches hands. Wouldn't care about box/papers myself. Wear it. Don't blame me if it doesn't work out :)

£6k [investment]... 15 years for the kids university funds?? any suggestions??

You have a known investment horizon/exit point and a specific requirement/future need -one which you could probably do a bit of a guesstimate of what return is necessary to achieve that.

Assuming both you and your kids' mum/dad have already both maxed out your ISA for 18/19 and are sure you'll both still have the spare ~£40k for 19/20, then look for a product that matches your specific investment horizon. There are school fee plans/products so I'd be surprised if there wasn't something for uni fees.

Investing in such a speculative, tax inefficient market without specialist knowledge is a fundamentally bad idea. The fact that you already know you'll want to realise the gain in a set time period makes it worse as you loose the ability to wait for the market to recover if it goes south. How much do you think a 15yo no-date sub (the most stable of watches) was worth in '07/08 after the crash and how easy would it have been to sell?

@TGR - you'll need to speak to each insurancer to check.

As a general rule most H&C insurers have a single item limit of ~£1k which you don't need to list. Then some will have an obligation to list any watches/jewellery over £x (which may be more/less than the single item limit).

From memory Direct Line have a high single item limit. If you only have one expensive watch Esure are good value - although everything about you will need to be vanilla.

A question for all the experts...

Here’s your first issue, speculating on the advice of a fixie skidder.