Helzberg Diamonds

Helzberg Diamonds is a Kansas City-born specialty jewelry retailer founded in 1915 by Russian immigrant Morris Helzberg. Built over three generations of the Helzberg family into a national chain, the company is best remembered for its 1967 “I Am Loved” button campaign and for its 1995 sale to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which followed a chance street encounter in New York between Barnett Helzberg Jr. and Buffett. Helzberg remains a Berkshire subsidiary, headquartered in North Kansas City, Missouri, with roughly 210 stores across 36 states.

Founding

Morris Helzberg, a Russian immigrant, opened the first Helzberg jewelry store in 1915.¹²³ Sources differ on which side of the state line the original shop sat on: Wikipedia and the Pendergast Years historical project both place the founding in Kansas City, Kansas — the latter adding that the family’s second store, opened in 1920, was on Minnesota Avenue, a Kansas City, Kansas commercial corridor — while Encyclopedia.com’s company-history profile ties the origin to Kansas City, Missouri.¹³⁴ The weight of the specific, address-level evidence (the Pendergast Years account) favors the Kansas side, but this page treats the exact location as unresolved.

Not long after the store opened, Morris suffered a disabling stroke, and responsibility for the young business fell to his youngest son, Barnett Helzberg Sr., who took over operations while still a student at Central High School; the Pendergast Years account gives his age at the time as 16, while FundingUniverse’s history says 14.³² The family had five children involved in the enterprise during its early years.² When Barnett’s brother Gilbert returned from World War I service, the two partnered in the business; they dissolved that partnership in 1923, with Barnett retaining the Kansas City jewelry operations that became Helzberg Diamonds.³ Gilbert Helzberg died in an automobile accident in 1934.⁴

Growth and the Helzberg family

Under Barnett Helzberg Sr., the company grew from a single storefront into a regional jeweler through the middle decades of the 20th century. Barnett Helzberg Jr. joined the firm in 1956 after earning a business degree from the University of Michigan and became president in 1963, when the chain operated 39 downtown stores; he redirected the business toward suburban shopping-center locations through the 1960s–1980s.⁴ Barnett Sr. became chairman of the board at that same 1963 transition.¹ In 1988 the company hired Jeffrey Comment as president — the first person outside the Helzberg family to hold that role — while Barnett Jr. succeeded his father as chairman; under Comment, comparable-store sales grew from roughly $700,000 annually in 1983 to $1.7 million by 1993.¹⁴

Through the postwar decades and especially under Barnett Jr., Helzberg expanded well beyond the Kansas City area, opening mall-based stores across the country and building one of the larger specialty-jewelry chains in the United States; by 1994 the chain had grown to 134 stores in 23 states with $282 million in annual sales, up from $10 million in 1974 and $53 million in 1984.⁵ The store on the Country Club Plaza remained the company’s signature hometown retail location, and Helzberg has long carried a presence in downtown Kansas City dating to its earliest years.

”I Am Loved” campaign

In 1967, Barnett Helzberg Jr.—then the company’s president—conceived the company’s most enduring piece of marketing: a small pin-back button reading “I Am Loved.”⁶⁷ By company lore, the idea came to him after his marriage proposal to Shirley Bush was accepted, and he wanted a way to let anyone share that feeling.⁶⁷

Helzberg produced 50,000 buttons for the 1967 debut, advertised in The Kansas City Star; they sold out almost immediately, and the Associated Press described the buttons as “the latest craze” for showing affection.⁶⁸ Cumulative distribution since 1967 has been reported at more than 50 million buttons as of a 2010 company announcement — a considerably larger figure than an earlier, lower estimate this page previously carried, which could not be re-confirmed in current sourcing and has been corrected here.⁸ The campaign reached far beyond jewelry advertising: per Helzberg’s own company history, hospitals handed the buttons to homesick young patients, and they found their way to soldiers serving in Vietnam, with buttons and free postcards offered to servicemembers at Christmas.⁷ Public figures reported to have worn the buttons include Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Joe Namath, and President Lyndon B. Johnson.⁸ Helzberg eventually printed the slogan in eleven languages, including French, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Japanese, Italian, German, Hebrew, Chinese, and Portuguese;⁷⁸ the company revived “I Am Loved” as a multimedia and social-media campaign in November 2010, and the modern “I Am Loved” jewelry collection has since raised more than $1.5 million for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.⁸⁷

Berkshire Hathaway acquisition

In 1995, Barnett Helzberg Jr. sold the company to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.¹⁵ The deal’s origin is a chance encounter that Buffett himself recounted in Berkshire’s 1995 shareholder letter: “In May 1994, a week or so after the Annual Meeting, I was crossing the street at 58th and Fifth Avenue in New York, when a woman called out my name.” The woman was a Berkshire shareholder thanking Buffett for his stewardship; Barnett Helzberg Jr., also a small Berkshire shareholder who had been at the same Annual Meeting, was nearby, introduced himself, and within roughly thirty seconds raised the idea of Berkshire acquiring his family’s business.⁵⁹ This resolves what earlier drafts of this page flagged as an unconfirmed detail: the meeting is confirmed as May 1994, at 58th Street and Fifth Avenue — a block from the Plaza Hotel (at 59th and Fifth), which may be the source of the “near the Plaza Hotel” detail in some retellings, though Buffett’s own account does not name the hotel.⁵

Buffett wrote that he “would not have bought the business if Jeff [Comment] had not been there to run it,” comparing an owner-operator-free retailer to “buying the Eiffel Tower without an elevator,” and that Helzberg, then 60, wanted to diversify his family’s holdings beyond a single industry.⁵ The purchase price was not publicly disclosed; the transaction was structured as a tax-free exchange of Berkshire stock rather than cash, which Buffett’s letter describes as the only structure that interested Helzberg.⁵ Consistent with Berkshire’s operating-company approach, the acquisition preserved the Helzberg brand, its retail identity, and its Kansas City-area headquarters.¹⁵

Today

Helzberg Diamonds continues to operate as a wholly owned Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary. It is headquartered at 1825 Swift Avenue in North Kansas City, Missouri, and operates roughly 210 stores across 36 U.S. states.¹ Brad Hampton became chief executive in 2022, succeeding Beryl Raff, who had led the company since 2009.¹

Legacy

Helzberg’s story knits together several threads of Kansas City’s commercial history: an immigrant-founded family business, a multi-generation succession, a piece of marketing that escaped its commercial origins to become broadly recognized, and a hometown company folded into one of the most prominent investment conglomerates in the country while keeping its headquarters in the metro. Its continuity in Kansas City since 1915 places it among the area’s long-running consumer brands alongside Hallmark Cards, H&R Block, and others.

For Registry purposes, Helzberg presents a Tier 3 case: its Berkshire Hathaway corporate parentage requires transparent disclosure even though the headquarters and brand remain Kansas City-rooted. See Boulevard Brewing for a parallel corporate-parent disclosure approach.

Sites in KC associated with Helzberg Diamonds

Helzberg Diamonds corporate headquarters, 1825 Swift Avenue, North Kansas City, MO
Country Club Plaza — the company’s signature hometown retail location
Various other Helzberg retail locations across the Kansas City metropolitan area

Sources

Wikipedia — “Helzberg Diamonds.” (fetched 2026-08-05) — Confirms: founding 1915 by Morris Helzberg in Kansas City, Kansas; Barnett Sr. taking control after his father’s stroke; 1963 transition (Barnett Sr. to chairman, Barnett Jr. to day-to-day leadership) and 1988 transition (Barnett Jr. succeeds as chairman); 1995 sale to Berkshire Hathaway; North Kansas City, MO headquarters; ~210 stores in 36 states; Brad Hampton succeeding Beryl Raff (CEO since April 2009) as CEO in 2022. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸
“History of Helzberg Diamonds,” FundingUniverse (fetched 2026-08-05) — Confirms: Morris Helzberg as a Russian immigrant who suffered a disabling stroke shortly after founding the store; five Helzberg children involved in the early business; 14-year-old Barnett taking over daily operations (this page’s age figure conflicts with the Pendergast Years’ age-16 account, noted in the body); March 1995 Berkshire Hathaway acquisition for an undisclosed sum, with the chain then operating 148 outlets and roughly $300 million in annual sales; the chance-street-meeting account of the Berkshire deal. ↩ ↩² ↩³
The Pendergast Years (pendergastkc.org) — “Barnett Helzberg, Sr.” (fetched 2026-08-05) — Confirms: Morris Helzberg, a Russian immigrant, opened the first Helzberg Diamond Shop in Kansas City, Kansas, in 1915; after his stroke, 16-year-old Barnett Sr. (a Central High School student) took charge of the store; a second store opened in 1920 on Minnesota Avenue (Kansas City, Kansas); Barnett and brother Gilbert dissolved their partnership in 1923, with Barnett retaining the Kansas City jewelry operations. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Encyclopedia.com — “Helzberg Diamonds” company-history profile (fetched 2026-08-05) — Confirms: founding attributed to Kansas City, Missouri (conflicting with Wikipedia and the Pendergast Years’ Kansas City, Kansas account, noted in the body); Gilbert Helzberg’s death in a 1934 automobile accident; Barnett Jr. joining the firm in 1956 after a University of Michigan business degree and becoming president in 1963 over a 39-downtown-store chain; the 1988 hiring of Jeffrey Comment as the first non-family president, with comparable-store sales rising from ~$700,000 (1983) to $1.7 million (1993); the March 1995 Berkshire acquisition (148 outlets, ~$300 million in sales, undisclosed price). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Warren E. Buffett, Chairman’s Letter, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. 1995 Annual Report (fetched 2026-08-05) — Confirms, in Buffett’s own words: the May 1994 street meeting at 58th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York, a week or so after that year’s Annual Meeting; Barnett Helzberg Jr.’s brief pitch and Buffett’s request for written particulars; the company’s growth from $10 million in sales (1974) to $53 million (1984) to $282 million (1994), then operating 134 stores in 23 states; Buffett’s statement that Berkshire “would not have bought the business if Jeff [Comment] had not been there to run it”; the transaction’s structure as a tax-free exchange of Berkshire stock, the only structure that interested Helzberg; Helzberg’s stated wish, at age 60, to diversify his family’s holdings. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷
JCK — “Helzberg Diamonds Launches ‘I Am Loved’ Campaign.” (fetched 2026-08-05) — Confirms: the 1967 origin of “I Am Loved,” conceived by Barnett Helzberg Jr. after his engagement to Shirley Bush; the initial 50,000-button order and rapid sellout; an Associated Press description of the buttons as “the latest craze”; production in 11 languages; cumulative distribution reported at “over 50 million” buttons (a figure this remediation uses in place of an earlier, lower estimate on this page that could not be re-confirmed). ↩ ↩² ↩³
Helzberg Diamonds — “I Am Loved: The Iconic History of a Collection.” (fetched 2026-08-05) — Confirms: the 1967 Shirley Bush engagement origin story; distribution of buttons to hospital patients and to soldiers serving in Vietnam, with free holiday postcards offered to servicemembers; multilingual button production; the modern “I Am Loved” jewelry collection’s donations of more than $1.5 million to the Make-A-Wish Foundation since 2009. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
PR Newswire — “Helzberg Diamonds Returns to Its Roots with Social Media Relaunch of Iconic 1960s ‘I Am Loved’ Theme” (November 2010) (fetched 2026-08-05) — Confirms: the 1967 origin story; the 50,000-button initial order; more than 50 million buttons distributed since inception (as of this November 2010 release); buttons sent to notable figures (Lyndon B. Johnson, Frank Sinatra, Joe Namath, Sammy Davis Jr.); the November 2010 multimedia/social-media relaunch with agency Rosetta. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Kingswell — “Serendipity on the Streets of New York: How One Man Seized the Day & Sold His Company to Berkshire Hathaway.” (fetched 2026-08-05) — Confirms, as a secondary retelling consistent with Buffett’s primary account: the May 1994 Fifth Avenue meeting; that Buffett requested written particulars and later invited Helzberg to Omaha; that the deal closed in 1995 largely for Berkshire stock; and that Helzberg shared proceeds with business associates. ↩