Buying

Without a doubt the best selection of West End Watches can be found on eBay. Some caution is needed though when purchasing. Specifically, there are workshops in Thailand and India churning out thousands of reconditioned watches of all brands.

The Thai ones are better quality refurbs, they at least seem to take the care to find identical models when they mix and match parts (not hard given the sheer quantity produced), though it doesn't help me with dating them. They also tend to stick to 60s-90s watches with ETA movements, presumably because they are available in large quantities, and actually charge fairly reasonable prices. You probably will get a watch that works, though it's highly unlikely to have all it's original parts.

The quality of the Indian refurbs ranges from awful to average. As anyone who has visited the country will know, everything there has some value and will not be discarded if there is any chance of turning a dime off it. Almost all of them have had the dial repainted (poorly) and many will have dials, movements, hands etc swapped with little regard for sizing, style or function (once you've paid there's not much you can do if it only works for a month). They also seem list at absurdly high prices and appear to routinely use shill bidders to raise the price (look for bidders with many bids, low feedback and 100% activity with this seller). There are a couple of sellers who appear to be genuinely a cut above the rest.

I can also see quite a lot coming from Singapore right now. I've not investigated their quality but my guess is that they are reselling Thai refurbs.

Personally I normally avoid buying anything from the far east. Although that does massively cut down your choice it also massively cuts down your chances of buying a complete dud (an occupational hazard on ebay).

Of course this is a double-edged sword... almost all West End Watches were of course made for export to India and Asia, so you would expect most examples to be located there. Fairly often I see unique WE pocket watches come up for sale from India where they were used extensively pre WWII on the railways. Of course whether any given example is a unique collectors item or a polished turd is anyone's guess. Caveat emptor.