George H.W. Bush has donated a special edition of the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Chronograph that has his signature engraved on the back to the Charity Save the Children for their 75th Anniversary. It is organized by Bill and Melinda Gates and the Gates Foundation.
I’m not sure if Bush is donating the watch or of AP is donating it.. it sounds like Bush is, but I’m not sure if the watch was made a while ago and he is now donating it or if it was a joint effort created for the charity. At any rate.. kind of a neat watch… I’d rather have it without anyone’s signature on the back though.
More info in the full article here:
http://www.savethechildren.org/newsroom/2007/75th-Anniversary-online-auction.html
This is the second stop in the Watches of the Carribean series, and buying watches from St. Thomas is different than St. Maarten. Since St. Thomas is a US Virgin Island, US/American visitors import allowances are higher than in other countries. I am not sure about the allowances… you may want to google for more information.
St. Thomas definately had much more to see and choose from than St. Maarten. The most notable of the watch dealers was Azura/Jewels. I spent most of my time there and at Princess World Jewelers, which carried Roger Dubuis, Ulysse Nardin, Hublot and also had a really nice Breitling Cockpit, solid gold bezel with diamonds, Mother of Pearl dial, for more than 50% off!! That location is not a Breitling dealership, however, they had that one, in the back… I really wanted to buy it!!
I spent a lot of time at Azura/Jewels. This first location, which is just called Jewels, carried Chopard, Jaeger LeCoultre, and many others:
I looked around at the JLC stuff, really nice, but still not my style, though the Grand Reverso was kinda cool:
The Jewels by Azura location is the one that has the massive 6 display sized Breitling booth. Check it out:
I tried on one of the small Breitling SuperOcean Heritages, and the new Bentley Mark VI Complications. The guy there, Tom, was really into the newer stuff.. I almost bought a White dialed Chrono Avenger there.. if it weren’t for the fact that the Tour was late and took forever and just took us back to the ship I may have just had to buy it! They also had one of those 8 Days alarm clocks like the Aviation ones for 40% off retail.. but retail is like $1200.
Some more pics:
I thought that the mesh bracelet for the SuperOcean heritage was pretty cool, since its mesh but still uses the Breitling styled clasps, giving it an updated mesh look. The new Ocean Racer rubber strap is nice as well.
A couple of the other booths in the Azura location include Patek Phillipe, Rolex and Omega. I took some pictures of the Omega and Patek booths, which no one was at, the Rolex booth was busy as usual… with the rep being able to rattle off the retail prices by heart. I’m not sure how much they offered for discounts off Rolex… and didn’t even bother asking to try on any Pateks… can’t afford ’em! 😉
St.Thomas has some pretty sweet shops, and I could have spent a full day alone in Jewels/Azura and Princess World Jewellers, but I refrained! Its far too easy to spend your money there… not to mention they have some pretty expensive Cognac there, I saw a bottle of Hennessy Ellipse for $5500US! I’ll take that Breitling instead, thank you very much. Anyway, that concludes the trip to the Caribbean, hope you guys enjoyed the articles, and its back to your regularly scheduled watch programming after this!
Here’s a quick video pass-through of St. Thomas’ Main Street. Not a whole lot to show but it gives you an idea of the amount of watch dealers they have!
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!
I will be visiting the Caribbean shortly here, so there will not be any updates for the week. However I will be following up shortly with video tours as well as photographs of all the nice watch stores hopefully.. such as the famous A.H. Riise.
I surely hope that they will let me videotape the inside of the amazing stores!
Maybe I will return with some new additions to the collection! I will be interested in Panerai, Zenith and Breitling mostly. Perhaps Anonimo and Martin Braun as well, but who knows. Also upcoming should be a review on the L&B Schaumburg Aquamatic COSC that should be arriving. lots of new stuff on the way!
Check out the new Corum Golden Tourbillon Panoramique!!! That is a pretty sick watch, and a really slick movement. Very low parts count as well at 168. The movement is a Corum 382, which is a modified LaJoux Perret 7951. Definately the right direction to take with the series! This one down here is technically a “platinum panoramique” I suppose.
This watch matches well with the Golden Bridge watches offered by Corum:
They are all beautiful watches featuring sandwiched Sapphire Crystals, Anti-reflective coated both sides. All Manually wound as well.
Some specs on the Tourbillon Panoramique:
Size: 38mm X 53mm (its a big one!)
Water Resistance: 30 meters
Optional: Diamonds – 225 Pave Set 8.4 Carats
Strap: Croc with Folding Clasp
