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AlbertaTime
in China #13 - Baoshihua Gold on the Dongsi Bei Da Jie WUS member "martback"/Martin
very kindly offered me overnight at his apartment the night before I left
Beijing, a great offer because it not only meant I could bypass a good
portion of the morning Beijing traffic on my way to the airport, but also
because it came complete with Martin as company and an offer of
wonderful Korean barbequed food
However, that meant I had only one last night in the area of Beijing that I now kinda considered home, so I decided to head out for one last night-time jaunt around around the neighbourhood. I've got more photos from my last couple of days in China that I'll post very soon (I'm jet-lagged a bit since I got back to Canada yesterday) but I wanted to post this fairly quickly because it was very nice final watch-related encounter that really made the evening for me. I went to a few normal commercial watch shops during my time in in Beijing, but they were selling new watches at nothing that was out of the ordinary (expensive imported stuff, or brand names you can find in an North American mall) but I passed what looked to me like an older-style clock and watch shop about three blocks past where I usually walked on the Dongsi Bei Da Jie, and decided to go in to look around. It was about 8:00 or so. Way at the back of the shop
was a display of...some vintage Chinese watches
I'd noticed he had an internet connection, so I asked (with gestures) if I could show him something... As soon as he saw the AMCHPR watches and realized the beardless, somewhat younger, guy in the website photo was me, he called his young apprentice ( I think) over to join us, and headed to the two older Chinese watch display cases. I first motioned to a rectangular Konque watch with a dial I'd never seen, but he quickly shook his head almost disdainfully and said "shi ying" (quartz), instead pointing me back to the mechanicals in the other display I'd seen earlier. I turned the quartz piece over and the older seller was absolutely right...the caseback was too modern for my tastes, and I happily joined him over at the mechanical display. Smiles all around. I already had a number of what he had to offer (the selection wasn't big, but it was real), and everything was new and in the original factory flats, so I chose this one at 60 RMB since I have very few gold coloured VCMs and I loved the yellowish dial:
...and here's his card in case anyone ever wants to drop by.
The seller was a very friendly , knowledgeable guy, and he treated me not only well but as someone who shared his attraction for vintage mechanicals. He was clearly pleased I was interest in Chinese watches and was pointedly talking to his apprentice about the watches in the VCM case the whole time I was looking at them, showing him as well as me what was what with the pieces. ...after all, he's the real deal !
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(so, again, many many thanks Martin).
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The older seller came out and, when he tried to steer me to some Swiss
stuff, I replied...."wǒ sōu jí Zhōng guó shoubiao" which resulted
in a big. big smile ;D
