This budget watch box made me fall back in love with my collection

Large watch boxes don't have to be expensive. A simple £30 box from Amazon breathed new life into my growing watch collection, putting 12 pieces on display and providing space for accessories, straps and cufflinks too.

I’ve been collecting watches for well over a decade now, and for most of that time, they’ve all lived in – and later, on – a small enclosed box by Stackers.

It had space inside for four pieces, plus a compartment for cufflinks, and room on top for three or four more watches. But over the years, it had become a cluttered mess and, crucially, I rarely ever wore the watches tucked away inside since they were out of both sight and mind.

It was clearly time for an upgrade, and for my birthday in January that was realised by a larger watch box from Songmics. Although an unfamiliar name from Amazon, this isn’t the sort of alphabet-soup brand often seen littering the budget end of the internet’s shopping warehouse. Songmics has its own website, ships from the UK, and sells all manner of home furniture and accessories.

So it’s a legit brand, and yet its watch boxes are often under £30. This includes the two-tier, 12-slot box I received for my birthday.

The spaces are a little tight, so it’s best for collectors who prefer watches of around 45mm or smaller. And there’s a compartmented drawer beneath for storing spare straps, batteries and watch tools, plus other items like cufflinks, rings and a wallet.

But the biggest benefit for me, by far, is the transparent lid. Instead of my watches being hidden away in the old Stackers box, here they’re all on display, all of the time. This has brought long-forgotten watches back to my attention and encouraged me to service them, replace their batteries, and wear them after years of neglect.

A new favourite is my Christopher Ward C3 Grand Tourer from 2018, which has just been treated to a new battery. The new box also helped unearth my Mondaine Stop2Go from 2013, a curious watch where the red second hand stops for two seconds at the 12 o’clock position every minute, mimicking the action of Switzerland’s railway clocks.

I could always have dug into my old box to find these watches. But seeing them on full display beneath the glass top of the new box has made me fall in love with them all over again.

The Songmics feels like a quality item, too. It’s not in the same league as luxury watch storage from the likes of Wolf, but it costs a fraction of the price and offers a near-identical experience.

The only downside? All 12 slots are already full, and I haven’t bought a new watch for months. I suspect another box will be on my shopping list before long.