About ModernGold

Who are we?

Moderngoldshop.com is the brainchild of Champ Charernthamanont and Timo Traub. Champ has grown up in a family of goldsmiths, gold traders, and gold retailers. He has been part of the family business since he was a young boy before he ventured out to the world to pursue his education and become a corporate lawyer. Timo has a background in entrepreneurship, fashion, and e-commerce. With this combined expertise, they have joined forces and built a business that aims to bring traditional and sustainable Thai jewelry to an international audience.

Moderngoldshop.com still has strong ties to its mother company, a gold business that has evolved and grown over three generations. Learn more about how it all started below...

 

Fleeing China for Thailand

It is a typical hardworking migrant rags-to-riches story. It started with a family of migrants fleeing Hainan Island in the South China Sea between the 1930s - 1940s in search for a better, more stable, life in Southeast Asia. With the protection of the Sea Goddess (水尾聖娘) so revered by the seafaring Hainanese, most of them managed to safely reach the shores of Thailand. Champ's ancestors came with nothing, except the will to make a living, to save as much money as they could in order to send it to their struggling relatives in China who could not escape the conflicts and ensuing poverty. 

 

Learning the gold trade

Back in Hainan, Champ's ancestors were mostly farmers and fishermen - they had little skills but a lot of determination. When they arrived in Thailand, they settled in the old town not too far from Yaowarat, Bangkok's Chinatown, where many new fresh-off-the-boat migrants often ended up. They quickly took any job they could, including working as goldsmiths in cramped workshops. They learned to make jewelry pieces on the job and soon enough their entrepreneurial sprits led them to opening their own workshop and supplying their jewelry, as well as the jewelry made by other workshops, to the jewelry stores in Yaowarat and beyond. 

 

Renaissance

After years of ups and downs and the following generation having given up on the gold trade - many opting to have formal education in Thai schools and becoming lawyers, engineers, and accountants - the gold business was all but abandoned. It was only revived when Champ's mother married into the family in mid-1980s and singlehandedly built the direct marketing business. She would physically carry big holdalls containing the products handmade in workshops of extended family and friends and she would go from jewelry store to jewelry store to present these products and convince the jewelry stores to buy them. She was so successful that Champ's father along with his siblings would one-by-one quit their salaried jobs and rejoin the gold business.  

 

Opening the first jewelry store

It was a family dream to have our own jewelry store. In 1994, almost by chance, Champ's parents opened the family's first jewelry store in Prachauthit area, south Bangkok, when one of their customers decided to retire and were looking to sell the lease of their jewelry store. Champ's parents seized the opportunity and started to not only supply other gold shops but started to sell to consumers directly through that shop. Since then, in a span of almost 30 years, they have opened more than 30 jewelry stores all over Bangkok metropolitan. Over the past years, Champ's parents have been scaling down the business with currently three stores still in operation. 

 

Modernization

Now in its third generation, while the traditional brick-and-mortar business is still the core of our business, the world around us has changed and so has our business. With the third generation slowly taking over, more and more of our sales are made through various online sales channels. One of these is moderngoldshop.com. Please take your time to discover our products and learn more about them. Do not hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any questions or feedback. 

 

Champ & Timo