what are costs of maintaining a mechanical watch
Look in the right places. And find a sale. Watchuseek has a forum dedicated to affordable watches which contains a mix of mechanical and quartz watches. It's a broad category, but there are some gorgeous mechanical watches listed in the forum that cost less than $1000. Private sellers on Watchuseek and TimeZone's Sales Corner are great resources for finding used watches in the hundreds and sub-$5000 range. Chronoshark lists daily deals on new watches.