Origins Of Top Businesses: The Not So High-End Beginnings Of Tiffany & Co
This section of our site is called “Origins Of Top Businesses.”
It features interesting facts about the early years of well-known businesses.
These facts are given to you for fun and inspiration.
Fun because how many top businesses started out is really surprising.
Inspiring because it will help you as a business owner see that if they can do it, so can you.
Now for today’s facts:
- Believe it or not, but the high-end, luxurious jeweler known as Tiffany & Co wasn’t always so fancy.
- It actually started out as a stationery store that Charles Lewis Tiffany and Teddy Young founded in 1837.
- The company was originally described as a “stationery and fancy goods emporium.”
- In 1853, the name was shortened to Tiffany & Co. when Charles took control and changed the company’s emphasis to jewelry.
- Their famous blue box was introduced that first year and has been used ever since.
- In 1845, the first Tiffany’s mail order catalog, known as the “Blue Book” was published in the United States. Surprisingly it’s still being published today.
- In 1862, Tiffany & Co. supplied some very surprising items to the Union Army: swords (Model 1840 Cavalry Saber), flags and surgical implements.
- In 1867, Tiffany & Co. was the first US firm to win an award for the excellence in silverware at the Exposition Universelle in Paris.
- In 1877, the insignia that would later become the famous “NY” in the New York Yankees logo was put on a medal of honor by Tiffany & Co. (The Yankees adopted the logo in 1909.)
- In 1878, Tiffany won the gold medal for jewelry and a grand prize for silverware at the Paris Exposition, which gave Tiffany even more added prestige.
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