Meet The Designer & Craftsman That Turned A Passion For Reclaiming 1940’s Vintage & WW2 Aircraft Parts Into One Of The Most Compelling New Watch Brands To Explore In 2017.
The Story
Began in Providence, Rhode Island
Kingsley No.1945® was founded in 2008 by Ramon Kingsley, the founder and son of a military officer born during the rule of a Latin American Dictator in the 1940’s. At the age of 6, Kingsley developed an obsession with military rulers and fighter pilots and began collecting his father’s military ammunition casings and vintage airplane gauges and reusing them to create makeshift toys.
As a young adult Kingsley went on to study industrial design at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design. For the next 15 years he developed a passion for inventing and designing bullet shaped Writing Instruments, machined jewelery & accesories for iconic american brands such as A.T. Cross Company including notable brand licensing projects for luxury italian automaker such as Escuderia Ferrari and many other high profile american & european brands.
One day Kingsley woke up from a dream about creating a wrist watch made by reclaiming all the vintage 1940’s and WW2-era military parts he had been collecting his entire life.
Several years later, he created a workshop out of the cellar of an old WW2-era foundry known as the Browne & Sharpe Co. in Providence RI. There he created his first watch prototypes from reclaimed vintage movements and WW2 aircraft materials bolted to straps cut from worn leather bomber jackets.
In 2010, word began to spread at local cigar shops about Kingsley’s unusual prototypes. A demand that led Kingsley to experiment with reclaiming WW2-Era vintage materials or using them for inspiration to create small limited edition runs of his first signature watch case.
At the providence workshop, hundreds of hours went into the design and engineering of his first signature watch case. Ingenuity always being at the forefront of every single design detail.
Whether a Kingsley is a one of a kind made from a reclaimed piece of vintage aircraft metal or from a new beautifully machined block of steel. A Kingsley watch is built with parts ranging from the local antique shop to highly specialized watch parts, machine shops and leather manufacturers from places in the USA, Switzerland, Japan, Italy, Germany, Spain and even latin american countries.
The source of our inspiration has no boundaries & we constantly seek ingenuis ways to create timepieces that tell a story.
