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Pure "Vitamin R"
Wedding rings in the DNATwo generations - one goal: the perfect ring for a lifetime. Rico, Roland & Chris Rauschmayer
A successful wedding ring brand for 50 years, jewelry factories in Germany and China, plus an up-and-coming winemaker:
The Rauschmayers are energetic and their energy seems to come from a "family" vitamin.
"Do you really want to do something that difficult?" Roland Rauschmayer was asked by his father when he founded a wedding ring company "out of nowhere" in 1963 - with 2,500 German marks and an old VW Beetle as "starting capital". As the son of a watchmaker family, he should have also become a watchmaker or at most a goldsmith.
But Roland Rauschmayer, a trained decorator and just 20 years old, wanted to start something independent and creative.
Maybe it takes a bit of crazy to build such a great company from a symbol of love as small as a wedding ring.
Rauschmayer consistently expanded its range, convinced more and more customers and soon became one of the best-known names in the industry.
Around 18 million Rauschmayer rings have been produced and sold over the past 50 years.
The passion is not limited to ring production:
The topic of marriage inspires Roland Rauschmayer to always come up with new ideas, such as the fairytale castle that he rents out for the most beautiful of all beautiful days, or the risk of entering the Asian market, where he founded a subsidiary in 2005.
Son Rico made a decisive contribution to this idea. Barely a year after graduating from high school, the then almost 20-year-old decided – in his own words “at relatively short notice” – to move to Guangzhou in China. "He was only 19 and three quarters, so he beat me by three months," jokes his father.
And son Rico explains: "The company here in Pforzheim was stable, so I looked for another, future-oriented opportunity for funding." He found it in China, where he now runs the Rauschmayer subsidiary "Star Creations International" with around 350 employees employees.
The basis for the "entrepreneurial thinking" of the two sons Rico and Chris was laid in their childhood, after all the brothers practically grew up in the company. The two sons were therefore always with him, accompanied him on trips all over the world and even lived in Mallorca for a while. After graduating from boarding school Schloss Salem on Lake Constance in English, Chris studied business administration in Cologne and, as he says, "already linked a lot of information mentally with the company at home" during his studies.
His area of responsibility is operational management at Rauschmayer. "We maintain a democratic management style in the company," says Chris Rauschmayer. Personal connections are important to the family - and they can also cover great distances. Even the 9,000 kilometers as the crow flies to China, which Rico Rauschmayer travels by plane about every six weeks to get to Pforzheim. He is in constant telephone and e-mail contact with his brother and his father anyway.
When Roland Rauschmayer bought the Mühlhausen Castle near Pforzheim, which was built in 1566, and wanted to grow wine there, he was – once again – declared insane. With the help of professional reading and a cellar master, however, the first own wine flowed into the castle's barrels in 2009.
Apropos: The castle is not only a location for festivities - at the same time, Mühlhausen Castle serves as a multi-generational residence. So everyone is gathered at the grape harvest, although the picturesque view from the Württemberg steep-slope vineyards around the wine towns of Mühlhausen and Rosswag is worth the effort. But although he sees it more as a hobby, Rauschmayer was also successful with his wine-growing project: his cuvée “Graf Marquard” from Lemberger and Cabernet Mitos was awarded the DLG Gold Prize in 2011.
A nice incentive for new, energetic ideas.
Rauschmayers active in two worlds
The Rauschmayer Fairy Tale
Once Upon a time...
a 20-year-old boy named Roland, who was learning the trade of decorator. Freshly in love and happy, he couldn't imagine anything more beautiful until one day a carrier pigeon flew to him. The white dove carried a small, velvety-transparent bag, in which two beautifully shiny gold rings shone through. Roland had never seen such a valuable pair of jewelry and he immediately had the desire to give his great love an equally beautiful piece of jewelry. But as soon as the dove disappeared into the air, he realized that he would never be able to raise the money for such a beautiful ring.
As a trained decorator, he would never earn enough money to give his girl such expensive gifts. Driven by the lack of prospects in his job and with his thoughts always on his first great love, he decided to found his own wedding ring factory. So he could give his loved one something so valuable every day and forge her an infinite number of rings according to your wishes.
With only 2,500 DM and an old VW Beetle, Roland Rauschmayer actually soon became one of the best-known names in the wedding ring industry. From this point on, the young brand was able to assert itself in the competition and grow into one of the most successful manufacturers in Europe.
Today, the Rauschmayer company supplies a wide range of retailers with a wide variety of designs and product variations and can look back on more than 50 years of Roland Rauschmayer wedding ring manufacture.
*The fairy tale is based on a true dream.