Christian Bauer has a split personality. Meet The Beauty and The Bounce: There’s the ring maker an the spring maker. Of course, everyone in the jewelry industry in America has been aware of the German company’s craftsmanship in platinum an high-karat gold since Christian Bauer, with rings and ensemble pieces sold in 400 stores in the United States, has also had a large disc-springs sales company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, since 1978.
It seems like an incongruous combination, but it certainly works for this 120-year-old-manufacturer. Christian Bauer has been able to successfully go two directions at once, in large part because research and development in metallurgy plays a key role in both products, and company-owned refineries produce materials for both jewelry and springs.

While celebrities such as Will Smith, John Mellencamp, and Patti Labelle are wearing Christian Bauer jewelry in America, the disc springs are being utilized on the hatches of the American Space Shuttle, in Boeing aircraft, and in automobiles. The disc springs rangs in size from that of a dime, all the way up to a 9’ x 10’ room. And both the rings and springs are made by Christian Bauer in a complex of factories in Welzheim, a town in southwestern Germany, just a few miles from Stuttgart.

Helmut Müller, sales and marketing mananger of Christian Bauer’s jewelry operation in Europe, explains how the two arms of Christian Bauer complement one another in product development. “We are working in the jewelry industry with alloys, trying new things, and in the disc spring area they use alloying to make springs more flexible or harder, of softer... a king of similar thing.” Another employee described the relationship like this: ”We’re all metal technologists.”

The Christian Bauer story began in 1880, in Welzheim, when Christian Bauer, the 22-year-old son of a butcher an a weaver, founded a jewelry company-which he named, much as American jewelers do today, after himself. His son Karl joined the company as a goldsmith at the turn of the century, and another son, Friedrich, wh o was educated in business, joined the company in 1910. Both took over their father’s jewelry business in 1913, when Christian Bauer died at the relatively young age of 55.

Today his legacy lives on at the family-run company that includes current Christian Bauer president, Helmut Hutt, who is still going strong at 82 years of age. Mr. Hutt joined the company nearly 60 years ago and married Christian Bauer’s granddaughter, Elfriede, in 1948. “He oversees everything,” says Tom Loback, general manager of Christian Bauer, U.S. for the past seven years. Mr. Loback says President Helmut Hutt’s daughters, Uta and Eva, as well as his niece Rosemarie Hirzel, all serve in key roles for the company.

Christian Bauer is known in our industry for it’s early entry into the platinum-jewelry market in the early 1990s, and it’s innovative two-tone look. How the company got into the disc spring business requires a primmer in political science.

During the two world wars, manufacturers in all combatant countries shifted priorities. In America, car makers produced tanks while in Germany Christian Bauer virtually shut down the jewelry business and manufactured weapons components. Yet, even when the use of critical material was restricted, Christian Bauer continued to produce wedding rings... out of iron and steel. And now, at last, we come to the question at hand. In 1940, Christian Bauer began making disc springs for the war effort. Production continued until Allied occupation in 1945, when the plant was shut down and production facilities dismantled.

In the recovery period following the war, Christian Bauer, beginning with a staff of less than twenty employees, regained its footing in both the jewelry and disc springs business. In 1949, the Ringfabrik Christian Bauer KG was formed. Today the company is prospering with the jewelry branch of the company employing 180 people while the disc spring division provides jobs for 220. Both have independent management and sales teams even though ownership is centralized.

In the United States, which accounts for approximately 40 percent of Christian Bauer’s total annual jewelry sales, four representatives are responsible for four geographic areas. Agents also handle sales in Europe, Australia, and Asia.
Mr. Loback in Florida, and Mr. Müller in Germany, both say that wedding bands account for most Christian Bauer jewelry sales. Mr. Müller points out that in Europe there is not the tradition of diamond engagement rings as there is in the United States. In Europe, he says, men buy a wedding band and women buy a matching band with a stone.

While the company offers four full lines of jewelry, sales in the United States are predominantly in wedding rings. The lines, which were introduced some time ago but have new product updates each year, include Wedding Rings, Starline (anniversary bands), Movingline (hinged pieces, slides, etc.), and the Classicline (cocktail rings, earrings, necklaces, pendants, etc.). Christine Huber, who has been with the company for four years, heads the jewelry design unit at Christian Bauer. The rings are not only renown for stylishness, but also supreme comfort.

Sales in the United States, Mr. Loback says, have been small in areas other than rings, he says in part, because of the cost of procuction. The Movingline, for example, has small pieces of precisely machined jewelry made and assembled by high-paid craftsman. Add markup and the retail price becomes quite high.

On the other hand, price points for rings extend over a broad range. “We make a 14-karat, two millimeter band for about $ 200 retail, going all the way up to a $ 10,000 ring. Our most frequently sold price point is probably about $ 1,000 and that’s a 5-6 mm wide platinum ring,” Mr. Loback says.

The design team and production units are always striving for innovation...to be the first in the market with new materials, says Mr. Müller. “We’ve created unique designs. We’d try different colors. We’ d try fine gold. We were one of the first to make white gold and platinum combinations.” Christian Bauer pioneered the two–tone look in 1990, according to Mr. Loback.

Indeed, the company has a longer history than the most with platinum jewelry. In the mid-
sixties the company began processing platinum and stepped up production in the mid-seventies. Christian Bauer, having just established a subsidiary in the United States, was positioned perfectly when the platinum boom hit in the early 1990s. It was founding member of Platingilde Germany, in 1976, and Platinum Guild International USA, in 1989. “We were here with the whole sales force team and an organized office,” recalls Mr. Loback. “And delivering product in a timely manner, that certainly led to our success, also.”

Loback stresses that the company he represents is based upon innovation, a superior product, and unequalled customer service. “We’re very sensitive to delivery and making weddings on the time,” he emphasizes.

At Butterfield jewelers in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a Christian Bauer outlet, their ads entice with the appeal of “fine German craftsmanship” and add as an example, “Think Porsche or BMW.” Could be they’re even more on the mark than they realize. Check out those chassis springs.