Christopher Radko
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Best Wishes of Boca is a Christopher Radko Starlight Store. We are one of five retail shops that does order fulfillment for Christopher Radko - a testament to our superior service and enormous inventory. Browse our online catalogue to see Christopher Radko's creations.
Now in his 21st year of business, Christopher Radko is still designing and producing keepsake ornaments, gifts and home décor for every special occasion and season the calendar brings. His hand-made, brilliantly colored and glittered ornaments and holiday decorations adorn millions of homes, from celebrity collectors’ and historic residences to the house next door to yours (and perhaps yours, too). His sparkling creations, have become collectors’ items, making a lasting “keepsake connection” among the friends and families who give and receive them in celebration of life’s milestones and memorable occasions.
It all began with a family calamity: In 1984, Christopher Radko decided that his family’s rusty old Christmas tree stand had served long enough. He replaced the stand and put their 14-foot tree in a gleaming new aluminum model. His family decorated the tree as always, with a treasured collection of over 2,000 mouth-blown, European glass ornaments. As it is for most families, their Christmas tree was a family diary with a story to go with each ornament. One week before Christmas, tragedy struck. The new stand gave way and the tree crashed to the floor, shattering almost every ornament. Many cherished memories and family traditions lay among those broken pieces, heartbroken, Christopher
Radko was determined to restore them for his family.
Trying to replace his family’s heirlooms proved to be a daunting task. Ornaments sold in the United States were, at that time, made of plastic and Styrofoam, certainly not capable of replacing the handmade treasures his family had collected over generations. The following Spring, while visiting cousins in Poland, Christopher began looking for glass ornaments. While he didn’t find the treasures he was looking for, he did find a man eager to revive the art of his great-grandfather; a tradition once thought to be lost forever.
Christopher Radko encouraged him to recover antique ornament molds, supplied him with sketches of his own childhood favorites, and for good measure, new designs from his own imagination. Several dozen ornaments were produced for his family, but those ornaments never made it to the family tree. Instead, friends in New York purchased all of them. On his next trip abroad, he brought back more ornaments: many for his family, and some extras, which sold out, as well.
Christopher realized he had discovered something wonderful! While at his job in the mailroom of a talent agency, he spent his lunch hours going door-to-door to stores in New York City, showing his designs. Georg Jensen, a top of the line jewelry store, was his first retail account. Through hard work Christopher
Radko achieved $75,000 in sales by the end of his second year. Now in its 19th year his company continues to thrive. |
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