Since 1946, the Gaber family has supplied watchmakers and jewelers with quality parts, tools, and materials — and the service to match. What began as one man’s gamble in postwar Pittsburgh is today the city’s sole surviving watch material house, serving customers across North America.

Ray Gaber spent the 1930s and early 1940s selling watch parts and tools for Martin Gluck & Son Material Company. After World War II, changes at Gluck led Ray to consider building something of his own.

It was not an obvious bet. None of the major watch companies believed Pittsburgh had room for another material house; there were already five in the city in 1946. So Ray rented space in Youngstown, Ohio to receive deliveries from reluctant suppliers — and, unbeknownst to them, drove to Pittsburgh every day to run his fledgling business. After a little more than a year, the watch companies realized Ray just might make it, and began selling to him in Pennsylvania directly.

Those early years were built on relationships. Ray focused on helping students at Pittsburgh’s watchmaking school, the Western Pennsylvania Horological Institute. Many of those former students went on to successful careers and supported the Ray Gaber Company for decades.

By the mid-1960s, the company had outgrown its space in the Century Building and moved to the Penn Building a few blocks away. In 1970, Ray’s son Denis Gaber left his trained vocation as a civil engineer to help run the company.

Through the 1970s, the business expanded into finished jewelry alongside its original watch and jewelry parts and tools. In 1982, a third generation — Chris Gaber — joined the business.

Returning to the rootsThe late 1980s and early 1990s brought major changes to the wholesale jewelry industry, and many exclusive wholesalers closed their doors. In 1993, Denis and Chris Gaber reorganized around the company’s strongest roots: watch and jewelry parts, tools, and materials. The new venture became Gaber & Company USA.

Chris became President in 1995, with Denis stepping into the chairman’s role. Longtime watch material employees came aboard to continue decades-long relationships with Ray Gaber’s original customers. One of them, Dan Vanderpool, first came from another material house — Gluck, fittingly — to work for Ray in 1972, worked with Denis through the 1970s and 1980s, and continues working with Chris today.

By 1974, the other Pittsburgh material houses from Ray’s early years had closed, leaving the Gaber company as the city’s sole surviving watch material house.

Gaber & Company USA continues to serve the trade with the same principles that have guided the company for generations: treating customers fairly, supplying quality products, and providing responsive, knowledgeable service.

Proud members of the JBT, MJSA, and AWCI.