Rodi Wienenberger vintage costume jewelry

Rodi Wienenberger vintage costume jewelry
The history of ROWI, or Rodi & Wienenberger jewelry began in Pforzheim Germany in 1885, when Eugen Rodi and Wilhelm Wienenberger founded their company. Initially, it was a small workshop with a staff of four to make medallions, bracelets and brooches. In 1904, they began to apply American gold plating technology, where two layers of gold plating were applied to a silver plated metal jewel. Thus, they could guarantee that their jewelry pieces would retain their golden luster throughout their life.
The company flourished in 1890, employing 80 people, and by the end of 1899 employed about 700 people. And five years later it was a joint stock company with a capital of 500,000 marks. Eugene Rodi retired in 1900, and Wienenberger became the head of the company. Already in 1910 they built a new five-story factory.
After the First World War, the production premises had to be expanded again by buying neighboring plots of land. In addition to jewelry, they began manufacturing pocket watch cases.
In 1924, Wilhelm resigned from the management due to his health problems and Karl-Wilhelm Katz, who was responsible for export, took over the business.
Noteworthy, the marking GR or OR means gilding, and R anchor W is an old marking used around the 1935-1940s.

In addition to jewelry, ROWI produced metal watch straps and wristwatch cases, and in 1929 they employed about 1,500 people. During the WWII, in 1944, a bomb explosion destroyed the company building in Pforzheim almost completely. However, the company run by Katz quickly rebuilt so-called the ROWI zone with its buildings.

Rodi Wienenberger vintage costume jewelry

One of the most profitable public companies in Germany, Rodi & Wienenberger employed about 2,500 people and sold its products in about 100 countries (in 1960s). Also, several manufacturing subsidiaries appeared in England, Spain, France, Italy, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, the US, and Hong Kong.

In 1984, ROWI launched the Fixoflex 2000, the world’s flattest elastic watchband, and in 1985 it celebrated its 100th anniversary.

Sold and renamed Rowi Schäfenacker GmbH & Co. KG in 2006, the company bore this name from 2006 until bankruptcy in 2010. Next, a Vietnamese group of investors led by Nguyen Trong Luat bought the company. It operated from 2010 to 2019 under the name ROWI Präzisionstechnik GmbH. The company went bankrupt again in October 2018, and ceased operations in January 2019.

Rodi Wienenberger vintage costume jewelry