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I have always enjoyed Bournmouth and the amount of shops catering for the WIS is enough to keep you occupied for hours :)
Glad you enjoyed your trip Tony, I am only sory that you had to spend the thick end of £3k on something to sit on :?
A WIS tour of Bournemouth on my recent holiday...
From a shopping point of view, Bournemouth is split into four distinct areas. In central Bournemouth, there are the usual suspects (H. Samuel, Ernest Jones & Goldsmiths). Whilst looking in these shops on a Sunday afternoon, my impression was that the stock was a bit anaemic, especially Goldsmiths. Many of the more prestigious brands were poorly represented or absent completely. I was about to find out why! Linking Commercial Road and Westover Road is the Victorian Arcade. Inside here is a dealer called Charles Fox. Here was the sight that greeted me whilst wandering around on Sunday afternoon. Apologies for the poor quality pic but it was a phone camera:
That explained why Goldsmiths looked a bit anaemic! Now there?s a sight to great the weary WIS! Closed, but with such promise...
All was revealed on Monday when all the shops were open. Charles Fox do all the top end brands, as well as some I haven?t seen in a shop window before, such as IWC, Hamilton and AP. The IWC?s all looked very nice, apart from the Ingeneur, which looked like something even Seiko would be embarrassed to produce. There were about two dozen used watches available, including the obligatory Rolex Submariner & GMT II combo. The range of Hamilton?s looked quite extensive, and reasonably priced (£300-£600 ish), but the styling seemed a bit too anonymous for my liking. They also had in stock a collectors-edition Speedmaster, with quite the largest display box/toolkit I have ever seen:
Continuing out of the arcade brings you to Westover Road. Here are Mappin & Web (more Rolex/Breitling) with about a dozen used watches available (including the obligatory Rolex Submariner/GMT II.). They also do Omega, Longines, Cartier, JLC and Chanel watches. If you want a laugh, do try to see the range of Chanel watches at a dealer near you. They make Jacob & Co look restrained, but tend to resemble those cheap ?market? bought watches that cost £3, covered in fake diamonds; except these cost about a thousand times more; and the diamonds are very real.
Next along the street is a dealer that sells mostly pre-owned watches, Michael Matthews Jewellery. There must have been 50+ watches available, but nothing took my fancy though. No surprises for guessing that the obligatory Rolex Submariner/GMT II was also for sale. Do Rolex make any other models? You wouldn?t know it from looking at the pre-owned selections.
An honourable mention must also go to the Watch Shop, located near the top of Commercial Road. As well as selling a selection of largely fashion brands, there is a large selection of straps inside, plus about two dozen quality used mechanicals in the window. A nice gold cushion-cased Accutron appealed to me but not at the asking price (£550).
To the North of Bournemouth is a very large road of shops, Wimborne Road. There are at least two shops of note here, one specialising in used watches. Edwards Jeweller?s had about two dozen quality mechanicals for sale (including you know what!). Just across the Road is Roses of Bournemouth Jewellers, which had one solitary used Omega for Sale. It was a ?diamond in the do? however but they wanted £499 (reduced to £469 when I took a sharp intake of breath) for an early seventies manual Omega 9ct gold dress watch (one piece Seamaster case but with solid black hands.) A beautiful watch in top-condition but it was overpriced (in my opinion). There are further jewellers listed further up this road but we didn?t have the time or the energy to walk past number 500!
Unfortunately, I was unable to visit Watches of Distinction, over at Lymington but I had already seen enough pre-owned Subs/GMT?s for one week anyway!
To the west, the Westbourne area, located behind Alum Chine beach (Poole Road) contains only one jeweller of note. I don?t recall the name but they had about a dozen used watches in the window.
To the East, Boscombe's Royal Arcade (just up from the Sovereign Centre), has a shop called In Time. As well as selling several dozen used watches, he has an interesting selection of straps. Nicest watch in the window was a Longines Conquest for about £230, but most of the watches were well under £100. There is an F. Hinds in the Sovereign Centre itself, with an excellent range of Citizen.
So, having drooled over all these watches, what did I buy? Two sofas, is the answer! Unfortunately, there is a branch of the Sofa Workshop in Bournemouth and we spent an hour in there scoping out a new sofa of two. So that was £2600 down the drain without a wriststrap in sight.
I did however try on a few watches as potential future purchases along the way. I tried on the ?Gold on black? Longines Chrono (there is also a very nice silver faced version) that will be familiar to you all. I also tried on a Seiko FI Honda watch that I had been eyeing up for a while. Both watches suited my wrist beautifully, but the Seiko won out on sheer value for money. I was somewhat shocked to discover that the Longines has a plastic crystal (on an £1100 watch!). This was shame, as the watch I tried on was already scratched on its crystal and would presumably be supplied to the customer as such. I do appreciate that it contributes to the look of the watch, but there is no excuse for supplying it pre-scratched to the customer. The look on the face of the shop assistant when I asked her what the crystal was made of was priceless though!
So, to sum up, if you are after a used Rolex Sub or GMT, you will have no trouble at all finding one in Bourmemouth. Bournemouth is a lovely place to spend a week with the family. There is 7 miles of golden beaches and plenty of watch shops to drool over. Just try to stay away from the Sofa Workshop or you could end up with more than you bargained for. :lol:
I have always enjoyed Bournmouth and the amount of shops catering for the WIS is enough to keep you occupied for hours :)
Glad you enjoyed your trip Tony, I am only sory that you had to spend the thick end of £3k on something to sit on :?
Cheers,
Ben
..... for I have become the Jedi of flippers
" an extravagance is anything you buy that is of no earthly use to your wife "
lived in bournemouth for 4 years. always liked this jewellers......lots of fine things.
brought a smile to my face even trying their watches on :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
You really should have checked out Watches of Distinction in Lymington... usually have quite a collection of rare / limited editions of various brands. Giles knows his stuff.
Lots of top brand dealers in Bournemouth, too, but not much chance of discounts at most of them !
Interesting post.
A couple of points
They were raided in broad daylight last September:
http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/8 ... jewellers/
I have seen the Security Guard come out of the shop and insist that photographs taken are deleted on the spot from the camera. You were lucky, they obviously didn't see you.
They have just given up their IWC concession and were selling them off at 25% off.
It is a great shop to window shop, apart from Sundays that is.
scooter
Charles Fox have been 'done over' a number of times over the years... they won't even let you in if you don't look like you have money.
Interesting thread - I'm off to Bournemouth on Thu/Fri/Sat/Sun this week for the air show. Any updates on which shops to look in?
(Scooter - the security guard has no right whatsoever to ask you to delete photographs taken while you were in a public place - even of their window display. Even the police get this wrong at times, but it's the same legislation that allow Google to create StreetMap.)
Excellent post - I don't know Bournemouth and didn't know it had such an array of outlets for WIS's. Funny you don't like the Ingenieur, it used to be something I really wanted though I never had the money.
I recently had the pleasure of spending a few more days in Bournemouth so an update is due. There is both good and bad news for a WIS.
First, the bad, Mappin & Web is no more leaving behind an empty dirty looking shop window (so I presume has been gone for some time) on Westover Road. As stated above, Charles Fox have lost their IWC brand and look to be selling off their Longines watches too as they only had a handful left, all discounted. Hamilton is no longer stocked either which is a shame. They did have a very nice range of Breitlings on display though, which sowed the seed for a recent purchase once back home.
There is plenty of good news though. Both Charles Fox and the nearby Goldsmiths have a fair selection of used watches on display (in the window in Charles Fox's case). I spent quite a while chatting with the manager in Goldsmiths (Hello Jo!) who certainly seems to know his stuff. There is also a new watch shop in the same arcade selling quite a few old Omegas and the like.
Michael Matthews seems to be doing well as the shop window is refurbished from when I last visited, with an extended range of used watches nicely lit in the window. They are also a Bremont, Oris and TW Steel (eugh!) dealer and seemed to be carrying the full range. Michael Matthews also has their used range on sale on their website, which seemed fairly up to date with what was in the window (unlike the Charles Fox website, which clearly bears no relation to what is actually in the window). Chopard watches are also stocked by the jeweller next door. Not surprisingly, Sod's law was in full operation for my time there; went looking for a GMT Master II (the place was covered in them 4 years ago!) but there was not a single one in sight; even in the shops up Wimborne Road. The Explorer II (black dial) was flavour of the week this time, with both Goldsmiths and Michael Matthews having them for sale.
In the tradition of revenge best being a dish served cold, the Sofa Workshop has also gone bust and is now a Tesco Extra. :lol: The sofas are still comfy though.
Thanks for the interesting post/and follow up, will whiz around next time I am there(early spring probably) has saved me a lot of time scoping things out
Thanks again
Great read, thing like this make me miss the UK. There is not much to feed my addiction in the south of Spain. Thanks for posting.
I worked in Bournemouth for a few months last year. Always enjoyed watch spotting around the town centre. Thanks for the write up.
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