Eye on Local Business: Danbury Mint, Norwalk

As Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin were preparing the modular Eagle for the historic moon landing on July 20, 1969, back on Planet Earth – in Westport, to be precise – Proctor & Gamble alumnus Theodore Stanley and his business partner, Ralph Glendinning, were putting the finishing touches on a series of commemorative moon landing medals, the first products to be created by their fledgling company, Danbury Mint.

As the company expanded, additional divisions were added in the 1970s and ’80s, under the new MBI Inc. umbrella name, including the Postal Commemorative Society (PVS Stamps & Coins;) Easton Press, publisher of fine books; and Willabee & Ward, a brand that would come to be known for its monthly roster of collectibles.

In 2003, MBI opened a 200,000-square-foot fulfillment center with an automated distribution system in Torrington, Connecticut. Yet another brand, Davis & Towne Handbags, launched in 2005.

Fifty-five years later, Danbury Mint – now based in Norwalk, Connecticut – still operates as a privately-owned consumer products marketing company. With annual sales exceeding $350 million, it has refined and developed its gewgaws over time, with products like meticulous models of James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5, as well as jewelry, coins, commemorative stamps, decorative plates and other collectibles featured in its catalog.

“For over 50 years, we have been serving the needs of collectors to acquire keepsakes of lasting value,” Danbury Mint notes on its website, emphasizing how the quality of the products makes them standout collectibles rather than tchotchkes to be fleetingly admired and then disposed of.

The company commissions figurines from leading sculptors and hand-paints them; designs and crafts jewelry, using semiprecious gems and metals; is an accredited maker of the Steiff teddy bears; and produces Christmas ornaments and decorations to exacting standards of quality and workmanship – not mere baubles to be thrown out each January, along with the tree.

All of Danbury Mint’s products are backed by an unconditional, “no questions asked” 90-day return policy, which offers a replacement or full refund, rare in the jewelry business, but a long-held policy that a spokesperson said was a cornerstone of the company’s continued success, along with quality merchandise.

Not that this remarkable company has any reason to be coy. When Stanley’s son, Jonathan, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder while in college in the 1980s, he committed himself to investing in research on mental health, donating more than $825 million to study bipolar disorder and schizophrenia before his death in 2016.

Half a century on, Danbury Mint continues to be essentially a family business, the Stanley Family Foundation being the majority shareholder, with more than half of the company’s profits still supporting the highest strata of mental health research.

That is certainly something to bear in mind when you next purchase remarkably lifelike sculptures of New York Yankees’ centerfielder Aaron Judge, Yanks’ second baseman Gleyber Torres and New York Jets’ quarterback Aaron Rodgers; or an 18-karat gold-plated “I Will Always Love You” granddaughter bracelet; or a 1967 Oldsmobile Cutlass 442 – which is to say, a replica die-cast model of one, obviously.