Lado Importing Company - Bohemian rhinestones

The original company.

Back in 1933, Mr. Lado had the foresight to leave Sudetenland with all his rhinestone inventory and settle in America before Hitler came and took it all. He packed it up and sent it off without telling anyone, then closed down his factory and he and his wife traveled to New York City. There he opened a rhinestone jewelry company using his existing stock as well as importing rhinestones from colleagues still in Gablonz and Germany. Over time, he became one of, if not the biggest, rhinestone jewelry manufacturers in New York City, located in the heart of the garment and bead district at 31 Union Square, NY. 10003. Listed eventually as a domestic business corporation on 6/20/1965, the company was dissolved by proclamation/annulment by authority on 12/24/1991. NYS DOS ID#189347.

One of Mr. Lado's customers was Dan Kasoff of Florenza Jewelry. On a website run by Agedandopulentjewelry.com I found this statement:

Stones Used by Florenza

This information has been provided by Larry Kasoff, son of Dan Kasoff, founder of Florenza Jewelry.

Over the years, Florenza used two primary glass houses as vendors to purchase their rhinestones and confined stones from (confined stones were those were made only for Florenza and not available to other companies). These companies were based in New York City, NY, and were Lado Importing Company and Hoffer and Stone.

Most of the confined stones were imported from Germany.

Vintage pieces from Florenza Jewelers - rhinestones from Lado Importing Company.

When he retired from the business, he sold off his stock to two Rabbi's who sold rhinestones and jewelry until 1968 when they in turn sold all the stock to the current owner, who has it stashed away in her barn in Tucson, Arizona.

Thats where we found it.

The purchase.

Dorly and Kenny had placed an advertisement in a New York City newspaper asking to buy a rhinestone business, and the owners of Mr. Lado's stock, the two Rabbi's, answered the ad and negoiated the sale of the stock to them. Dorly and Kenny rented a truck and drove to New York City to pick up the rhinestones, but when they got there they discovered they needed two trucks. So they rented a second truck and hired a driver, and off they went, 3,000 miles on regional back roads all the way from NYC to Tucson, Az. It took them two weeks. There were no freeways back in those days.

Dorly and Kenny made it back home with no problem, but the second truck never made it.

A call to the FBI was made, as the thought was that the truck had been hijacked and the contents stolen. After the initial investigation, the truck and driver were found in Arkansas, broken down on the side of a road. Repairs were made and the truck continued on its journey, finally arriving safely in Tucson.

The majority of the rhinestones were put on shelves in the barn in size and shape order; navettes ranging from 2x 6mm up to 2x 28mm, pear, oval, square, rectangle, round, rivoli, flat back, 2 hole railheads, cameos, and much more. There were transparent, opaque, satin, moon glow, pearlized, granite and other colors.

There were over 500,000 gross of these rhinestones, and all the findings and settings that went with them to make costume jewelry.

Among the Lado and Company rhinestones were other brands that Lado had imported, including Swarovski, Kittay and Blitz and K. Ginsburg.

Kenny and Dorly ran their rhinestone jewelry business for years, until Kenny passed away in 1997. Dorly tried to keep it running, but finally gave up when her horse ranch and video store became more pressing.

In 1998 Dorly walked into our room at the G&LW show at the Rodeway Inn on Grant Road during the February Gem Show, with samples of her rhinestones, and we have been selling them ever since.

Rats are stealing the rhinestones and Dorly is finding them scattered all over her ranch in rats nests. Shelves are collapsing in the barn, and rhinestones are getting mixed up into unorganized piles. Spiders have taken up residence amongst the boxes.

is truly a race against time to save these rhinestones from being lost forever.

Dorly would love to find a buyer for the entire stock; but in the meantime she prepares small envelopes with rhinestones inside for sale by us when the Tucson Gem Show comes to town every February. Every year, buyers who know what we have come and dig in our rhinestone bins for fabulous 1930 era glass rhinestones from the Sudetenland and Bohemia, and from Germany and Austria.

The sale - 2016.

In late 2015 we were contacted by a couple, who expressed an interest in purchasing the rhinestones from Dorly after reading our article on the internet.

Photos were emailed and a price negotiated, and after the Tucson gem show in February 2016 we all met at Dorly's Horse Camp in Oro Valley where the transfer of the rhinestones occurred.

It took seven days to empty the barn, the garage, the pantry, and the Navette room, place the rhinestones into plastic bags, place the bags into boxes, weigh the boxes and ultimately load into a 54 ft semi truck. There were seven of us working from 8am until 7pm every day, and on two days there were four other friends helping.

The barn is now empty. There were so many beautiful rhinestones.

They even collected the ones which fell to the ground, using a sifter to sort out the debris.

These are some of the rhinestones which were collected from the dirt, after sorting and cleaning them.

When the truck arrived it was 3 days late, and could not enter through the front gates, as it was too long. It drove down the road to turn around and proceeded to get lost and stuck in the sand. Finally, it arrived back in front of the gates out on the road, and we proceeded to ferry pick up truck loads of boxes to the truck and load out there.

We started loading at 9pm and it was finally loaded by 1am. The next day the semi truck started the long drive up into Canada.

We all slept in the next morning after such an exhausting week.

But at least the rhinestones were saved, and now they are being sold online on eBay. The long history continues.