First stop – St. Maarten (or St. Martin for the French side)…. This was a great place, with lots to look at. I was not really that thrilled with the prices of the watches for the most part in St. Maarten, but the selection was hard to beat. The only time I’ve ever seen more watches is in Hong Kong and other parts of Asia, where Patek and Frank Muller dealers were every other store in some districts.
That’s a shot of the King of the display cases at Little Switzerland in St. Maarten. They said that I wasn’t allowed to take pictures, but that’s after I already took that one, so I got one. Note the Solid Gold Diamond covered Motors T in the back left. The entire Bracelet and dial and case are set with diamonds.
Some of the stores I visited included:
Kay’s Jewelers – Ball Watch + others
These guys were one of my favourites. GREAT discounts, almost bought a Ball Mad Cow there! And no nonsense.. straight to the goods, these guys. Beautiful diamonds too.
Ballerina Jewelers – Frederic Constant, Martin Braun, Cvstos, Paul Picot, Alpina and More
These guys were great to deal with… I have to say that the guy working here was a great watch enthusiast and he was very eager to try and sell me a Cvstos or a Martin Braun, and I was very tempted, believe me!
Art of Time – Breitling, Panerai, Omega, Franck Muller, Bell & Ross, U-Boat and More
Also very knowledgable, and as they do carry Breitling and Panerai, one of the hottest watch shops in the area.
Little Switzerland – Breitling, Omega, Zenith + more.
Little Switzerland was nice because they have Tiffany & Co and Coach… buying stuff there keeps the women happy. Their discounts were slim, and their staff were less knowledgable than at the other places, but still a very nice store to visit with lots of selection.
I also went into Cartier, Goldfinger (Tag Heuer + more) and Diamonds International Watch & Design. Diamonds International W&D had some nice stuff including Hamilton, Ebel and some others, but for the most part did not have anything too interesting.
Here’s a little video I snapped outside Little Switzerland and Goldfinger and Art of Time and some others. Amazing selection:
Wrist Shots
Note: My wrist is about 6 3/4″, so it is smaller. When I was at Little Switzerland I was allowed to take a wristshot of the Zenith Chronomaster that I liked very much. The Zenith Defy open heart was not as much to my taste as I thought it would be, perhaps the white dial would have be preferable… but here’s the Chronomaster, white Guilloche Dial version:
Then at Ballerina I tried on a couple of the watches… the two that I thought were notable were the Martin Braun Eos, with white sunburst dial and the Cvstos. The Martin Braun was really nice, and probably one of my favourite dress watches I’ve tried on in a long time. There was a blue dialed one that was even nicer!
The Cvstos was deadly.. I tried on both the Round and Tonneau shaped Challenge Chronos, but I far liked the Tonneau shaped one, it had much larger presence on the wrist. Look at the detail! I was told by them that the owner of Cvstos is the son of Franck Muller’s owner… and is only 24 years old!
This second video was taken outside Goldfinger and Art of Time. Art of Time has a killer selection of watches!
Art of Time and Panerai
I tried on several models of Panerai at Art of Time, and decided that I do not like the Radiomir models definately. I much prefer the Luminors, and the 44mm models are actually quite nice on the wrist. Not quite Breitling for Bentley sized, but still quite nice.
They offered NO DISCOUNTS on Panerais.. nothing. I found that odd, since I had seen discounts at other Panerai dealers before. Perhaps it is because they get so few and they sell so easily, that they choose not to give them. At any rate, the cheapest one they had for sale that I liked was around $9800 or so. I would have rather bought the Bell & Ross for 1/3 the price. That is one watch that I really liked!
So If you are going watch shopping, the Caribbean offers selection like no other place around here, that’s for sure. Everything in a 4 block radius! Stay tuned for my look at St. Thomas!