SAJN |2020: THE YEAR IN REVIEW
RONALD UNGAR UNGAR BROTHERS CC
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Ronald – together with his brother, David – established Ungar Brothers nearly 30 years ago. After 30 years, he still loves his job and shares the vision and dedication of everyone at the company. What he enjoys most about the jewellery industry is having a diverse group of valued customers who are both down-toearth and approachable. Good service and a large range of superior quality stock, is what Ronald believes keeps Ungar Brothers at the top of the game.
What have been the most important life and business lessons you have learnt this year? That no matter how bleak the outlook, things will eventually change for the better – so t’s essential that you be ready for that when it arrives. What are you looking forward to in 2021? A business resurgence. I’m ready for it!
Ungar Brothers CC The Ungar family has been at the forefront of the South African jewellery industry since the 1960s. Ungar Brothers local ranges of jewellery is always fully stocked with a vast range of 9ct gold earrings, pendants, religious jewellery, lockets, charms, CZ tennis bracelets, rings, 9ct body jewellery and 18ct tennis bracelet mounts. Its local ranges of jewellery are continually enhanced with specialised imported items.
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ANDREAS SALVER ANDREAS SALVER MANUFACTURING JEWELLLERS
suggested that I work for him after school as an apprentice jeweller until I figured out what I wanted to do,” recalls Salver. Although he had not wanted to become a jeweller, when he realised that he could make exactly what his journeyman asked of him, he was thrilled. He worked as an apprentice for Mair for 18 months, after which he made jewellery for his mother.
From the age of five, Salver was brought up by his mother, a single parent who worked from home out of her garage. Throughout Salver’s schooling career, he would come home to see what she was making and all the tools she was using. When he wanted to give his teacher a gift at the end of the year, his mother suggested making her something. He duly made her a brass keyring with a copper cut-out of a child sitting in a chair with his hand up. “When I told her I’d made it myself, she cried. I’ll never forget that feeling. “When I turned 11, my mom remarried Alan Mair, also a jeweller, who started his own company, Alan Mair Manufacturing Jewellers. I started working there every school holiday. Mair became a giant in the jewellery industry, employing about 240 staff in his heyday. Mair
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What are the most important life and business lessons you have learnt this year? This year inspired me to come up with a new creative design of which I’m very proud. It’s much more than a piece of jewellery: it transcends this earth and gives one the ability to unlock their higher self; their higher potential. This jewellery has a spiritual dimension to it. It began during the lockdown, when I started seeing a metaphysical therapist by the name of Cameron Hogg. Over those five months, many people were awakened to something other than their norm. They weren’t allowed to go to church, so they looked within themselves for spiritual sustenance and many discovered new things. I believe yoga was increasing and Christianity was decreasing. I read about Masaru Emoto, a Japanese businessman and writer who works with water. He labels it with different words. These words change the crystal structure of the water. Words are
enormously powerful and our selection of them and the way we use them can influence the way we live. I looked even further and deeper, reading about the Anunnaki – a group of deities who feature in the mythological traditions of the ancient Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylonians. I learnt about the way shapes create energy, sacred geometry and the mathematics of the pyramids. I took something out of everything. What are you looking forward to in 2021? Seeing how my new range, Awakening by Andreas Salver, will be received.
Andreas Salver Manufacturing Jewellers Salver started his own business, Andreas Salver Manufacturing Jewellers, in 1992 at the back of Richard Francis’s shop as a one-man band. He strives for perfection in all his designs. “The biggest compliment I ever received was when another respected jeweller asked me to make a piece for his wife,” he says. Salver’s business philosophy is to be a man of his word who never lets people down or seeks to make money by cheating others.
SA JEWELLERY NEWS – DECEMBER 2020 / JANUARY 2021