- Portrait of Fidea Jewellers, or the 80th anniversary of a Swiss watchmaker’s shop in Toronto
Founded in 1928 at 512 Yonge Street in Toronto, by Swiss watchmaker Paul Baumann, Fidea Jewellers has celebrated its 80th birthday in 2008.
Due to the great depression, the late Paul Baumann was forced to close his watch manufacturing business in Tramelan (in Switzerland’s Bernese Jura) in the early 1920′s. Hoping to make a better fortune in North America, he left his family behind him to move to New York and later arrived in Toronto. He immediately began repairing watches in the city. As a skilled watchmaker – he had a reputation of being able to repair any watches even the one with the most complicated mechanism – Paul Baumann was earning double wages because he produced twice as much as other watchmakers did.
He started Fidea in 1928 in the very same house the company is still operating today, although the building has been renovated in the mean time. Paul Baumann passed away in 1970 and Fidea Jeweller is now run in partnership by his two sons Cliff, 82 and Rudy, 77, while their eldest brother Wilfred – who is a preacher at Jarvis Street Baptist Church – is taking care of some of the PR activities for the store.
Clifford Bauman started to work full time with his father at Fidea in 1945 while Rudy joined the business in 1949. Both of them learned the métier of watchmaker from their father in Fidea’s own repair shop.
Although the store location has not changed in 80 years, the watch industry has diversified a lot during that time. Nowadays watch manufacturing companies – who are almost all integrated in large international groups – are rendering business much less attractive for small independent retailers like Fidea as they set their retail strategy much more on sales volume than on customer loyalty while managing their own after sale services.
But Fidea has been able to overcome all the recent changes. In diversifying their line of products, which nowadays also include Swiss army knives, jewellery, crystal figurines as well as porcelain collectible plates and thanks also to their loyal customers, Cliff and Rudy Bauman have been very successful in keeping their business running through the years.
The two brothers are not speaking of retiring yet but both of them are glad to know that Katelyn Bauman, Rudy’s granddaughter, is planning to pursue Fidea’s adventure by taking over the business in the future.
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