The firm was established in 1848 as a cutlery shop by a young Swiss instrument maker, Jacob Wiss. The original location was in Bank street on the present site of the Prudential Insurance Co. Building. His two sons, Frederick C. J. Wiss and and Louis T. Wiss, eventually joined him, and silver and jewelry were added to the cutlery.
As business boomed, the cutlery manufacturing business was moved to Littleton avenue, where the largest scissors and shears manufacturing plant in the world stands.
After occupying several location in Broad street, the jewelry store moved to its present location in the Wiss Building in 1911. In 1939 the store was enlarged by the addition of a gift section fronting on West Park street, and in 1945 Wiss opened its first suburban store in Central avenue, East Orange. A store soon will be opened at 28 Church street, Montclair.
According to Wiss officials, the Broad street establishment is the oldest store in Newark will conducted by the immediate family of the founder. The store now is headed by Jerome T. Wiss, grandson of the founder and son of Louis T. Wiss. He is a director of the Gemological Institute of America and president of the New York and New Jersey Guild of the American Gem Society.
Both he and H. Victor Paul, vice president of the Wiss stores, are certified gemologists and registered jewelers of the American Gem Society, a distinction accorded to fewer than 150 men in the country.
The centennial celebration will continue through the middle of June, Saturday an exhibit of Wiss gems, with an estimated value of $1,000,000, will open at Newark Museum for a week. In the exhibit will be a 10-karat diamond presented to Princess Astrid by King Leopold of Belgium as a betrothal ring, a 64-karat emerald-cut diamond hanging from a platinum necklace paved with diamonds weighing more than 20 karats, a coffee-colored, pear - shaped diamond weighing 65 1/2 karats, a pigeon blood ruby weighing 9.43 karats, which according to store officials is of a size and clarity rarely seen and is the most expansive stone in existence next to a red diamond, and a grass-green emerald weighing 6.14 karats.
Another feature of the exhibit will be a demonstration of diamond cleaving by Lazare Kaplan, cutter of the famous Jonker Diamond. The stone, third largest ever found, was split by Kaplan in New York in 1937 after European experts had disagreed for several months over how it should be cut. The demonstration and a talk on gems by Wiss will be given Saturday at 2:30 P.M. and Thursday night at 8.
In addition to describing the exhibit at the museum, Wiss will take part in the ceremonies at the store with Mrs. Wiss and Mayor Murphy.