Why I love the Clairtone story
I was crawling my Facebook feed this morning and one of the mid-century modern groups I follow had posted about Clairtones. Our very first piece of mid-century furniture was an old teak Clairtone with the stereo removed. It started us on our MCM furniture addiction. To me the piece represents not only a great looking furniture, but also the spirit of Canadian entrepreneurship that many seem to believe doesn't exist.
I love the Clairtone story - two 20-somethings building a massive consumer phenomenon drenched in style and technology right here in Canada. It was the 60s equivalent to the iPod.
Once upon a time, for a short time, Clairtone Sound Corporation was one of Canada’s most dazzling, most admired companies. It started in 1958 with four employees, $3,000, and a cramped, makeshift factory at 26 Sable Street in a Toronto suburb. The initial idea was simple: to merge contemporary Scandinavian furniture design with the latest in high-fidelity equipment.
http://www.ninamunk.com/ClairtoneLesson.php
The company went bust but the founders behind it did fine for themselves in the long-run. Peter Munk and David Gilmour went on to create a fortune for themselves - South Pacific Hotel Co (sold for $128M), Fiji Water(sold for $50M), Trizec Properties (sold to Brookfield for $4.8B), and Barrick Gold (currently a market cap of ~$8B, but as high as $50B in 2011). These two are the definition of serial entrepreneurs.
You’ll see a glimpse of the original incarnation of our Clairtone at the 4min 47sec mark in the video below about the story of Clairtone.
