About Daybreak
We buy watches we’d wear, fix what decades broke, and tell you exactly what we found.
Daybreak is a small workshop and a smaller catalogue. Every piece is sourced by hand, opened on our own bench, and photographed the way it actually looks.
Sourcing
Sourced by hand
Most of our watches come from private collections, small auctions, and a handful of dealers we’ve known for years: in Japan for the Seikos and King Seikos, across Europe for the Omegas, Universal Genèves, and the rest. We travel for the good ones and pass on far more than we bring home.
Everything is bought outright, never taken on consignment. That keeps the incentive simple: we only take on watches we’d be happy to keep, because until someone buys one, we have.
The sequence
How a watch earns the dial
Sourced
Bought outright, never on consignment. If we wouldn't wear it, we don't buy it.
Serviced
Where a watch needs work, it’s opened, cleaned, and regulated on our bench. The timing results go in its listing.
Sold as-is
Described and photographed exactly as we found it. No change-of-mind returns, so ask us anything first.
Servicing
Serviced on the bench
Watches that need it cross the bench of our watchmaker before they go on the site. Movements come apart completely: cleaned, oiled, worn parts swapped from the drawers of crowns, crystals, and mainsprings we’ve been filling since we opened.
When one goes back together, it goes on the timegrapher. That printout of daily rate, amplitude, and beat error is quoted in the watch’s listing, so what you read is what we measured, not what we hope.
The promise
Sold honestly, or not at all
A vintage watch carries its years: a hairline on the crystal, lume gone the colour of tea, a bezel that has seen weather. We shoot every mark and write it down, because the patina is the point, not something to hide.
Each watch is sold as-is and described exactly as we found it: every mark noted, every replaced part called out. We don’t do change-of-mind returns, so ask us anything before you buy; and if a piece is ever not as described, tell us and we’ll put it right.
The collection
Every watch in the shop has already made the journey: sourced, checked over, and photographed exactly as it is.
Shop the collection