I was a college student doing the typical continental tour with my best friends in my beat up old Audi. We had just tallied up and my friends had handed me cash for all the group expenses I had paid for. Unbeknownst to us, we had been watched. We then visited the beautiful Salzburg Dom Cathedral, where my purse was stolen right from the pews. The thieves were after the cash, but what they got was my great-great-grandmother’s diamond earrings. I had just turned 21 and my grandmother sent me her grandmother’s earrings as a present. Too late to take it to the bank locker, unwilling to leave it in my college dorm room in Berlin, I had it in the bottom of my purse the whole trip! Years later when I came to the US, the land of opportunities, I moved from pharmaceutical science to pursue my passion. I wanted to make sure no one else experienced that sense of loss and violation that I felt on the balmy summer afternoon in Salzburg.

So much has changed in 25 years. Remember when apple was just a fruit we bit into? When blogs, apps and texting did not exist in our vocabulary? When children wrote cute letters to their grandparents? And yet so little has changed. The fundamental principle that my business was founded on remains steady. Affluent families value their treasures and want to both protect and rejoice in them. They want the luxury of privacy and peace of mind.

Over the years I am very proud that we not only look after the fabulous collections of our clientele but also their trust. As I look to the next 25 years, we will continue to build on our strengths of innovation and state-of-the-art technology combined with the solid old-fashioned values of integrity and discretion.