: I am amazed at how often the watch looks perfect the first time,
: and then when the pulse returns to a normal rate, I notice a
: blatant problem -- wrong pushers, wrong hands, even a missing
: model name (Carrera, for example). Or I re-read the description
: and see that the watch is not running.

: With the BuyItNow bargain, we sometimes must act fast (or risk
: losing the watch) . . . consider whether a few more seconds to
: really look at the watch will be worthwhile.

This. I have lost count of the number of times I've seen something and almost jumped straight at it, only for my ardour to rapidly cool once I take a proper look. I think there can be a tendency to see what you want to see, particularly on the rare ones. The non-runner would concern me less, depending on my appetite for a project, the first concern and check for me is to authenticate the watch. And that's best done coolly and factually; it's hard to disassociate the excitement of discovery but worthwhile - I may have missed a couple over my collecting "career" (had to backspace the word in quotes, muscle memory makes me type another word beginning Car...) but equally I haven't made any expensive mistakes either.