Today I am writing my first blog about our shop Vaessen Jewelers in Heerlen, the south of the Netherlands.
Our company was founded in 1900 on the farm of my great great grandparents parents. Stephanus Vaessen was a young men when he started to fix watches and pocketwatches in his workplace at the farm of his parents.
After fiftheen years he decides it was time to leave the farm and start his own business in the center of Heerlen. Heerlen was a city in the South of Netherlands (near the German boarder). The city became very popolar because they found the black gold (coal). People from all of the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium came to Heerlen to find there luck in mines.
The city grew, so did Vaessen jewelers, our great-grandfather was able to expand the store and moved to the city market in 1938. Untill this day we have our main shop on the citymarket of Heerlen. In 1946 my grandfather (Winand Vaessen) joined the family company. Stephaan Vaessen personaly trained his son in becoming a watchmaker, as there was no education available in the Netherlands at that moment. My grandfather runed the shop untill 1972.
In 1972 Steph Vaessen joined the company and started to bring in the brands. We where the first dealer of Cartier and Chopard watches and Jewelry in the Netherlands. The company became bigger and bigger and my father expanded the shop to the Oranje Nassaustreet. In 2000 the shop became the title "by appointment of the queen of the Netherlands" (nowadays King of the Netherlands).
Since 2009 I am working in the shop of my parents, together with my brother we started the website www.chronojuwelier.com
I am going to blog out different kind of watchbrands and stories in the upcoming time.