Those who collect Radko ornaments do so because they appreciate the Old-World quality and nostalgia inherent in each hand-crafted design
You can just imagine the sound – a majestic, 14-foot Christmas fir, loaded down with thousands of antique glass ornaments and lights, suddenly teetering off-center and then – with a lumbering, time-stopping swoooosh – crashing to the floor. That was the scene, Christmas 1983 in the Scarsdale, N.Y., home of Christopher Radko’s family. There was already enough guilt riding on the young Columbia grad’s shoulders, knowing it was he who had replaced the rusty but trustworthy old cast-iron tree stand with a new and obviously less-reliable aluminum model, but Radko’s anguish was further compounded by his relatives’ not-so-subtle reminders that most of the demolished ornaments had come from Europe and dated back to his great-grandmother’s time.
Replacing the shattered heirlooms became a mission of paramount importance to Radko, but when he set out on his buying quest, he soon found that mouth-blown glass ornaments were all but impossible to find. “They were no longer being produced,” Radko said. “They had died off in the early ’70s when department stores looking at the bottom line saw that it was cheaper to import ornaments from the Orient, where there was no tradition of glass-making. Instead, there was plastic or styrofoam, the materials of the Atomic Age ... without any heart or soul.”
It was during a visit to his family’s ancestral homeland of Poland that Radko unwittingly stepped onto a path that would change his life forever. He had located a retired glassblower who could work from old molds and the sketches Radko provided to recreate some of the beloved figurals, umbrella balls and Victorian icicles that had been lost in the crash of ’83. Radko returned home jubilant that he would be able to present his grandmother and parents with several dozen replacement ornaments. While they were not originals, they certainly came close, as they had been crafted in the 19th-century manner. But those ornaments never made it to the family tree. Friends who had seen the shimmering glass baubles insisted on buying them, which gave Radko pause to consider the retail possibilities.
Radko returned to Poland, commissioned more ornaments from antique molds, and during his lunch breaks from the talent agency where he worked, embarked on door-to-door rounds, showing the wares to hard-nosed department store buyers. By his second year in the part-time venture, he was chalking up $75,000 in sales – not bad for a $12,000-a-year mailroom clerk. Clearly, the handwriting was on the wall, and Radko could see a glittering future ahead for his Christmas ornament business, which now supplies 2,500 stores, including Nordstrom’s, Macy’s and Neiman-Marcus (catalog).
Today the empire founded by Radko, who was dubbed “The Czar of Christmas Present” by the New York Times, is headquartered in a 12,000-square-foot mansion in Tarrytown, N.Y., that also doubles as the company’s New York showroom. Inside, the sumptuous Victorian decor never changes – it’s always Christmas, with an ornament-laden 10-foot tree perennially serving as the focal point.
In 2005, Christopher Radko’s company was purchased by Rauch Industries of Gastonia, N.C. Wisely, the new owners have kept production standards high, retaining the firm’s army of skilled artisans in Poland, Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic. Each mouth-blown, hand-painted piece in the Radko range takes a full seven days to hand-craft, with no shortcuts taken. Because each example is individually detailed, no two are exactly alike. “There are even specialists who paint only eyelashes or only the seeds on fruit ornaments,” said Radko, whose hands-on involvement with the company has been phased out slowly since the sale to Rauch, to be assumed by the same designers with whom he has worked since the beginning.
The team’s ideas are submitted to carvers who interpret the designs into clay or plastic. After a three-dimensional sample is approved, a sand-cast “mother” mold is created from molten metal, using a technique that dates back to the Renaissance Period. Various stages of production then follow, starting with the blowing of glass – tempered for extra strength – the hand-injection of liquid sterling to render luminescence, base-painting, lacquering, application of fine details, and finally, glitter dusting, tagging and packing for shipment.
Those who collect Radko ornaments do so because they appreciate the Old World quality and nostalgia inherent in each piece. Even diehards who draw an uncompromising line in the sand to separate antiques from collectibles find Radko’s range irresistible. The rationale is, there simply is no way to find 19th-century ornaments in any great quantity, no matter how much money a person is willing to spend, so the next best thing is a Christopher Radko ornament made by skilled European glassblowers using age-old techniques. Radko designs interface seamlessly and beautifully with antique ornaments and, because of their obvious quality, don’t have to “justify” themselves, even to purists. After all, whatever is good enough for the White House is good enough for most American households.
Radko’s artistry has decorated not only the Bush family Christmas tree but also the White House mantel during President Clinton’s tenure and the Vice President’s Queen Anne-style residence while the Gore family lived there. The Connecticut Governor’s Residence and New York City’s Gracie Mansion are two other distinguished homes that have showcased the beauty and old-fashioned appeal of Radko trimmings at Christmastime. Radko ornaments are also found in the collections of a many celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey, Robert Redford, Whoopi Goldberg, Kim Basinger, Sir Elton John and Robert De Niro.
Since issuing his first collection of 65 ornaments in 1986, Christopher Radko has produced more than 10,000 designs, as well as licensed items for Disney, Volkswagen, Ford Motor Co., and other corporations. Over the years, the range has been expanded beyond standard ornaments to incorporate glass garlands, finials, miniature ornaments and clip-on birds. Radko also resurrected the American post-war Christmas decoration company ’Shiny-Brite.’ Featuring 1940s styles to appeal to the boomer generation, the Shiny-Brite line includes such classics as bubble lights, sparkly plaster-coated snow villages, and striped or rippled glass balls in colors evocative of that period. In 2001 Radko also ventured into holiday home decor with Christopher Radko’s Heart of Christmas (Clarkson Potter Publishing), a guide to creating classic holiday looks, whether for a farmhouse in Connecticut or a penthouse in Manhattan. As if that didn’t keep him busy enough, Radko then launched his Home for the Holidays collection, which features lighting, tabletop Santas, nutcrackers and an assortment of holiday foliage, including pre-lit trees, decorative wreaths and seasonal arrangements.
Each year since 1993, Radko has created special ornaments to benefit charities of his choosing, and to date, millions of dollars have been raised. In the past, the company’s fundraising ornaments have benefited AIDS, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer and pediatric cancer charities, as well as animal welfare organizations and an orphanage in Poland. Like all other Radko ornaments, the charity designs can be purchased online (www.ChristopherRadko.com) or through any authorized retailers.
Although they were never intended as “collectibles” per se, Christopher Radko ornaments have attracted a loyal following and can bring prices on the secondary market that rival – even surpass – those of bona fide Christmas antiques.
Approximately one-third of Radko’s designs are retired each year, which automatically enhances their collectibility. His Partridge in a Pear Tree, for instance, originally retailed for $38 and has been known to sell for as much as $1,000 in recent years. There is nothing artificial driving the market, however. Radko retires ornaments only because there is a limited workforce of artisans available to create products by painstaking, old-fashioned methods – and that team is already producing to capacity. The rule by which Radko is guided is, if the company wishes to introduce new designs, others must go.
Another reason why Radko’s ornaments have proved so popular on the secondary market is that collectors are reluctant to resell them. They tend to choose their purchases emotionally and use them for the purpose for which they were intended: as tree decorations. Once a Radko ornament is acquired, it becomes part of a family’s Christmas tradition, to be enjoyed year after year, generation after generation. And no one can put a price on that.
Learn More: Into the Radko Aftermarket
It takes only two collectors to establish a secondary market for an object of any kind: one to buy it and one to sell it. Since their 1986 debut and the first after-market transaction – details unknown – Christopher Radko ornaments have continued to win over new fans with each passing year. Collecting retired, limited-edition or special-issue Radko ornaments isn’t just a holiday pursuit; it’s an ongoing, year-round hobby and one that has found its fan base online through eBay.
Because collecting Christmas ornaments is such a personal experience driven by the nostalgia of one’s own childhood and family experiences, it can be difficult to determine the fair market value of a particular piece – that is, unless you own the new hardcover reference titled Christopher Radko Ornaments – Volume I. This weighty, 315-page price guide contains illustrations, descriptions, style numbers and values of almost every ornament, garland, finial and Disney piece released by Radko since its first range. Only a few designs were unavailable for inclusion pictorially.
It’s an easy book to use, since it’s organized by year of production and also has an excellent criss-cross index. Ornaments may be looked up either by style number or name, e.g., Nutcracker Trio.
A follow-up guide – Volume II – is planned for a September 2008 release and will include Radko releases from 2001 onward, but for now you’ll find there’s plenty of good reading in the initial book, which is edited by David A. Olsen and retails for $55. Order through our Amazon links.
