Hans Stern, Jewelry Designer and Founder of H.Stern, Dies in Brazil

Hans Stern, founder of H.Stern, has died at the age of 85. Known as Brazil’s “king of colored gems,” Stern arrived in the country at the beginning of World War II as a poor German immigrant.

Stern was born in the early 1920s in Germany. He fled Europe in 1939 and arrived in Brazil at the age of 17, where he began working for Cristab, a mineral and precious stone exporter based in Rio de Janeiro. Six years later, in 1945, he founded his own gemstone trading business, also in Rio.

The firm, H.Stern, grew to include 160 stores in Brazil and 170 additional stores, franchised in 26 countries. Stern was said to have especially loved tourmaline and was given the title, “the king of colored gems” by the media.

Stern is survived by his wife, Ruth, whom he married in 1958, and their sons Roberto, Ricardo, Ronaldo and Rafael.