The return of Jessops!!

Jessops have opened a store in Edinburgh. Popped in to have look yesterday.
Shouldn't have bothered-no Pentax in any shape or form.
Only dealer in Scotland appears to be Merchant City Cameras in Glasgow.

I noticed it was now an option for "Collect in Store" - used to only be the Jessops concession in Sainsbury's Murrayfield. Suspected it would be a bit dire!

There are a couple more apart from Jessops (which are listed as Pentax outlets!) if you click on the K-1 'where to buy' link on the right.

the return of jessops will never happen
even old man jessop said that

Well something is happening, any new photo stores should be welcome news.

My namesake saved the wrong stores.... I would've saved Jacobs

Now there's a name from the past that shop in was humungas

Ffordes up north also stock Pentax.

I remember when Jessops and Jacobs were right next to each other at the West End - Jacobs was clearly better though both were much more expensive than buying online and I didn't have much cash back then for spending on photography gear. Hang on, I still don't

I used to enjoy going into Jessops to "Window shop" then buy what I wanted cheaper online. Only used Jacobs (Newcastle on Tyne) once. Ordered the Tamron 10-24mm and was told it would be ready to pick up on such and such a day. Went to collect then lens and was told "Oh it's been sent to Glasgow". The shop closed down a month or so later, wasn't surprised

I've had several film bodies and lenses off Jessops in the past but after they stopped selling Pentax I looked elsewhere for my first DSLR after that it didn't take me long to find SRS so they now get 99% of my business.

Had Jessops continued to stock Pentax I would very likely have still bought there.

To be fair Jessops I went into their branch in Birmingham and they had a Pentax presence. Cameras, lenses AND a Pentax person.

I have no proper dealings with the current incarnation of Jessops - but I have fond memories of their printed price lists (a single sheet of paper bigger than the Sunday Papers with miniscule print that listed thousands of products and their current prices) - I would scour the list for any Pentax price typos (and yes they made a few) - my luckiest find was a Pentax LX FF-1 waist level finder for around £14 when they were retailing elsewhere at over £100.

As they grew the quality of the staff was variable, although they did have some very knowledgable people working for them, and their product range changed quite a lot. Second Hand dwindled then dissappeared, and there were rumours that they were effectively being propped up by one or two major Camera manufacurers - it was at this point that Pentax vanished from their shops

The store closures almost wiped out what they had aquired from a large number of independent photo shops, and of course online photo shops more than filled the gap - now we have the Peter Jones chain we see today.

Sorry for the ramble - it's my age

I remember them. I used to use them as test objects, when testing lens sharpness

Martin

I still have some and previously posted scans here link

Best regards

They were the best prices available anywhere in those days, but you had to go to Leicester to take advantage.