Founded in 1947, Bearings Limited began as a small family business selling bearings, with six employees operating out of just a few thousand square feet in New York City. Relying on local trade, the company took a family approach, providing excellent service and treating customers and employees as if they were relatives.

Successful growth forced the company to seek a larger location during the 1960s, so Bearings Limited purchased and moved into a 14,000 square-foot building in Long Island City, Queens in 1965. Its ample space enabled Bearings Limited to significantly increase inventory levels and better serve a growing number of customers in Queens, Brooklyn, and Long Island.

As their customer base expanded over the next 10 years, so did Bearings Limited, which more than tripled in size. The company could no longer rely solely on surplus purchases to service customers. To maintain a more consistent supply of high quality bearings, Bearings Limited established direct relationships with overseas manufacturers and began importing bearings. With new product sources came the need for more space, so Bearings Limited relocated in 1977 to a 28,300 square foot facility in Hauppauge NY.

Bearings Limited's decision to import bearings was visionary. Not only did sales flourish but supply levels and service increased so dramatically that Bearings Limited made a strategic decision in the early 1980s to exit the surplus business. Bearings Limited then ramped up overseas purchasing and began offering customers Japanese and Chinese bearings as well as traditional European makes.