Vollmar & Sons family business Bonn's traditional jeweller is to become a gin store

Bonn · The traditional Bonn family business Vollmar & Söhne has announced the end of its trading after 160 years. But the tradition at the Kaiserplatz is not quite over.

 The jeweller Vollmar & Söhne has a long history on the Kaiserplatz.

The jeweller Vollmar & Söhne has a long history on the Kaiserplatz.

Foto: Benjamin Westhoff

The traditional business Vollmar & Söhne is closing on 17 July, as owners Anita and Johannes Vollmar announced on Sunday. This marks the end of a 160-year trading history in Bonn “with one eye crying and one eye laughing.” After the closure, son Raphael and his business partner Gerald Koenen plan to revamp the building from August and to make it into the headquarters of their international beverage brand Siegfried. The clearance sale is due to begin on Tuesday, 1 June.

For generations Vollmar & Söhne has been the first port of call for fine goods in and around Bonn. The product range includes valuable jewellery, special varieties of tea and fine porcelain.

Federal Government supplier for many years

The family business is now in its fourth generation. The beginnings go back to great-grandfather Wilhelm Vollmar. “This was a Bonn great - socially too,” Johannes Vollmar told the GA in 2012 on the occasion of the 150th anniversary. Now the entrepreneurial family has conferred and questioned how the tradition can be continued. “At this point, we are extremely happy that we have found an answer within our family network that allows us to continue our entrepreneurial tradition in this historically rich place,” said Anita and Johannes Vollmar. The tradition will be continued with son Raphael. “This prospect and the certainty that our history will continue to be written in another chapter on the Kaiserplatz makes us extremely happy and fills us with great joy, so much for the ‘laughing eye’,” the statement continues.

The family's entrepreneurial activities included the founding of a candle factory by Wilhelm and Gertrud Vollmar in Sternstraße in 1910, which developed into the largest church candle factory in Europe. In 1927, the entrepreneurs expanded and bought a retail store for perfumery, jewellery and silverware on the Kaiserplatz.

When Bonn became the federal capital, the shop supplied the federal government with guest gifts for many years, as well as the Hotel Petersberg and various embassies with cutlery and porcelain. A former French ambassador is said to have lobbied for the traditional company to be granted a sales licence for valuable French crystal from various companies.

(Original text: mur, Translation: Caroline Kusch)

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