Damien Kalmar never intended to follow in his mother Marlene’s footsteps, but working at Kalmar Antiques he found his true calling.

I never had any pressure to enter the family business. What I really wanted to do was become a helicopter pilot. I started down that path but I ran out of funds. So I originally only entered Mum’s business to earn a bit of money.

Both of my parents worked in the jewellery industry. Mum focused on antique jewellery and Dad on modern jewellery. I studied the diploma of gemmology and while I passed first year, I found that it really clicked for me in the second year. I suddenly thought ‘yeah, I really love this’.

I went on to teach gemmology, which I really enjoyed, and I learned about antique jewellery from my mother – she started training me in antiques and in management of the business. And from there I started getting into it and loving antiques more and more. It has become my passion. I now give lectures on antique jewellery for the National Council of Jewellery Valuers. I often say that I haven’t worked in 20 years, because I don’t consider it to be work. There is nothing I don’t love about antique jewellery.

It’s a niche market within the industry and the challenge is in finding stock that is in good condition. Because of that we have to factor in repair costs; we are custodians of the pieces 100 years later. As a business we also do a lot of repair work.

The biggest problem we see in the industry is the incorrect method of repair. As they say, the best repairs are the ones you can’t see. It’s important to retain hallmarks. Valuation can also be difficult. You can’t put a textbook valuation on antiques, there is so much more involved in it, such as the way it is made.

We find that our customers love the history and the fact that the pieces are handmade. They like to come in and take a look around and they find it all interesting. Some of the pieces I find I can’t part with, so in the store we have the vault, which is two cabinets holding items we have collected over the years. They aren’t for sale but are just brilliant examples of what they are.

My brother Daniel also works in the business. We both went away and followed our own paths and then we both came back to the business on our own volition. He is now a watchmaker by trade.

It is what they say, the advantage of a family business is that you get to work with family. And the disadvantage is that you are working with family! But I do think we’re lucky. Security is a big issue [in this business] and it is null and void when it’s family. The downside is that you take the work home with you. There is no off time.

I get my work ethic from Mum. From her I learned that you just can’t give up. Mum started [in 1986] with one small stand at an antique centre, which turned into two small stands before becoming a stand-alone shop in the Imperial Arcade. We then moved to the QVB, which is where we are now. We expanded in 2022, which was just after Covid and was a bit stressful at the time. But it has been great, we put in a watch-making workshop and employed a master watchmaker.

I do get autonomy at work. Mum doesn’t do computers, or things such as Xero, accounting and payroll. And she doesn’t have the same passion for watches. Whereas I love to research and go down rabbit holes. I love vintage watches and antique pocket watches.

I’ve got three kids, two sons and a daughter. If they want to get into the business I am here for them, but if not, then that’s ok too. For me, I love it, I adore it.