If you love seeing watches in the flesh, then you must go to Hong Kong. There are tons of boutiques all over Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. There are numerous independent watch ADs as well.
The only problem is that mainland Chinese visitors, and the cost of real estate have limited the good deals that once were pervasive all over the city-state. However, it is a great city that is worth visiting just for its food and watches.
There were some very good second hand watch stores on the Kowloon side. The pictures with hundreds of watches piled up are the 2nd hand, or old new stock stores.
I have better luck further out more in the more industrial parts.
Hung Hom and Sham Shui PO are where I normally look for good deals on vintage.
But, the ones around TST and Mong Kok do have more of the desirable newer ones.
Zenith Big Blue still haunts me.
Why didn't I buy it when I saw it at the bottom of the Sino Centre?
The shop shown in the first picture is at Champagne Court in Tsim Sha Tsui. There are 5 shops there that sell pre-owned, and the one in the pic also sells some new stuff. For that specific shop, I have purchased a Panerai from there, and if the sticker price is say HK$28,000, then expect to pay $26k. The shops there are mainly selling pieces from HK$15,000 and above and Swiss made. So mainly Rolex, PP, Tudor, Panerai, ALS, etc (less so Zenith, IWC, Omega in terms of pre-owned market). Champagne Court also has 3 shops for watch straps, tools and watch-boxes. TST also has many shops all over the place for new stuff (both ADs and grey market dealers). Basically, the wealthy mainland Chinese tourists go to TST to buy their watches (new and used).
There are also a few shops around Dundas Street area in Mong Kok, that includes shops for new Seiko pieces at decent prices as well as the above for pre-owned middle and high end. Basically, you could spend a whole day going to each shop at both TST and MK to compare prices or hunt for a particular watch, but Champagne Court is most likely to have it if looking for pre-owned, Swiss, middle tier and above pieces.
I have only gotten into watches with any real interest this year, and have found there are so many boutiques, authorised dealers, and pre-owned shops - mainly for Swiss made, middle tier and above. It can be awfully dangerous to the wallet to go window shopping.
There is much choice but prices are not so attractive.
Fyi there is a Steinhart AD in Lai Chi Kok. I haven't been there, but good to know since there are only a handful of Steinhart ADs in the world.
After making an appointment, I went to that 'AD' (really just a room in an industrial building) where the rep Victor Pong was very helpful. You can handle some watches there before deciding to go through Victor or online. If going through Victor you'll have to pay a bit more though. I've ordered once through him and once online, both times the watches took 16 days to get to me with no issues.
The only problem is that mainland Chinese visitors, and the cost of real estate have limited the good deals that once were pervasive all over the city-state.
Not quite sure if I agree that the good deals are gone now. HK's Swiss watch sales, in addition to other retail sales, have been declining for some time. True, their sales were focused primarily on the mainland visitors but as the middle-class mainland Chinese visitors are starting to have even more buying power, they're looking elsewhere beyond HK where their money goes further due to exchange rates.
If that really is the case, then it would mean you should be able to find some good deals due to them "struggling"...I certainly got that impression when I did some watch shopping/browsing last month
Having just returned from HK, it absolutely blew me away how many boutiques for the absolute most expense brands were littered essentially everywhere. I could not walk more than a mile within the most urban areas without seeing Vacheron, Patek, GO, Blancpain, Bregeut, and even Richard Mille. These boutiques don't even exist in Chicago, let alone multiple. For people with more modest budgets, I found HK's watch options underwhelming (with Japan being slightly better).
i disagree. there was a wide selection of Hamilton, Longines, Tudor, Tissot was everywhere. Swatch stores everywhere. You must have missed some of the stores. I think some of the malls have more modest watches as well. What brands do you consider modest?
Wow awesome! I had no idea HK was such a place for watches. Although outside of going into the established/named boutique's, how high is the risk of fakes? the question comes from a pure place of ignorance about the HK watch market.
I remember being almost overwhelmed by the shear amount of watch boutiques and stores when I visited Hong Kong a few years ago. Although I did manage to find something while there that I had been searching for.
Hong Kong is one of my favorite cities in the world. It is absolutely teaming with life in every corner. And for selection of watches, it's hard to beat anywhere...
That's a good site. Sinno centre is good. If you walk to kwong wa street where they sell lots of air soft guns (weird how people here are obsessed with those) they have some decent vintage stores too. There's another little upstairs shopping centre in Mong kok that has a store front for strapcode too.
If a few of you enthusiasts are in town we can do a mini gtg and make a day of it looking at watches.
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