OUR STORY

Our Story

Welcome to Stonebridge Watches, thank you for visiting our site

Where else to start but the beginning of our watch journey....

Being a child of the early seventies my first timepiece like many was a Timex, one of those mass produced watches made at the time. I felt very ''grown up'' putting a watch on every morning and so the love of watches began. I kept the Timex into my secondary school when the digital watch phase started. I remember first seeing these watches that looked like something from NASA and the very special button that when pressed lit up the watch at night. It began my second craze of fascination and the one I really craved was the Analogue / Digital watch. Even at this young age I liked the digital idea but still preferred the ''classic look''.

At 21 my father said I needed a ''real watch'' ! In other words something Swiss and classic. Therefore I owned a gold Raymond Weil for many years. I kept my interest in watches however did not own anything new until my mid thirties when my father-in-law gifted me a Maurice Lacroix Pontos. A beautiful gift however in truth having small wrists it was not suitable for everyday wear, a theme I will return to. It did however return my interest to watches and with the explosion of information now available on the internet I would spend hours researching and often lusting after watches I mostly could not afford having started a family.




Moving forward a few years I joined many watch internet communties and forums, gaining more knowledge and my interest became more than just a hobby. The problem for me was whilst the range of watches available was huge, there was a theme... they were becoming larger and larger and many if not most would not be suitable for my small wrist. I grew frustated with this trend and therefore a whole new era of watch collecting opened for me with researching and eventually buying vintage models. One of the first was this vintage Omega Seamaster (ref 168.0061) and it remains a firm favourite.



With my family now growing up I now had the time and opportunity to start Stonebridge Watches. The theme would be to provide watches of 40mm or less, meaning they would be suitable for those with a smaller wrist or simply wanted something more compact. Naturally with their historically smaller size vintage would be the starting point, however smaller modern day watches would also be made available.



Limiting to a maximum size of 40mm of course means some models we admire will not be available here. However we are passionate and committed to catering for those clients who experienced the same frustration at enjoying watches but also felt a little excluded. It is interesting that the trend is starting to reverse with Tudor offering smaller case sizes and a heavy influence on their vintage models. The demand is certainly there and we hope we can in some small part fill that void.

Many high profile celebrities such as Daniel Craig and Sylvester Stallone have been spotted wearing vintage watches such as the vintage Rolex Daytona (37mm). Therefore we feel the watches we offer suit most wrists regardless of size.



Like our watches we are smaller than some but you will receive a more personal service and certainly a trust which we hope will develop into you staying with Stonebridge Watches for many years to come.