Emilie Rigby is honoring history while moving her business, Zinn Brilliant Ornaments, into the future.
Rigby handcrafts tin ornaments using some of the oldest-known molds. Though the Cooperstown native took over the business from her parents in 2020, Zinn Brilliant began more than a century ago.
The company started with Gustav Mayer, a German immigrant working as a confectioner in New York hotels in the late 1800s.
According to rigbyhandcraft.com, “He became most famous for his dessert wafers, and used that success to move to Staten Island in 1870 and open his own shop. He had many sideline business ventures, including the ‘Sparkling Brilliant Ornaments.’”
Mayer crafted the ornaments for about 30 years, until electric Christmas tree lighting took the ornaments out of fashion.
The site stated that during World War II, most of the molds went to scrap collection.
Bill and Janet Rigby befriended Mayer’s elderly daughters, Paula and Emilie (for whom the current owner is named), purchasing the remaining molds and learning the casting process. They launched Zinn Brilliant Ornaments in the mid-1980s, continuing a tradition of craftmanship and selling the products from their Staten Island porch. The Rigbies moved to Cooperstown in the 1990s.
Emilie Rigby, 34, called her path to business ownership “long and winding.”
“I have an environmental science degree … and I taught outdoor education for 10 years and was a green woodworker,” she said. “I carve wood that’s not yet cured, and that was my hobby and it slowly took over my life. I found I had two full-time jobs, so I picked the fun one and was an independent craftsperson, starting in 2019.
“I picked up the ornaments as an additional thing to make,” Rigby continued. “It was a couple months out of the year, so I thought, ‘yeah, I can fit this in,’ and Dad taught me how to make them and Mom showed me all the logistics of the business. One day, I was trying to show my dad the power of the internet and said, ‘We can post a video and have 1,000 people see it,’ but it went viral and we got 100 million views and a million likes, so now I make Christmas ornaments all the time.”
Despite ushering Zinn into its next chapter, Rigby remains committed to old-fashioned artistry.
“I want to keep it all (here) and made by hand,” she said. “It’s really tempting to take a successful idea and see how big you can scale it, but the joy of the ornaments is that they’re lovingly made, by hand. The Christmas decoration industry has gotten so out of hand and everything is disposable and cheap and that’s not us. I try to price them low enough that they’re accessible, but high enough that they’re treasured. Part of that is the story, and the fact that I dip every single one and trim and hand-paint them. That level of care is really important to me.
“I do not want to cross that boundary, and we don’t want to outsource,” Rigby continued. “So, it’s really a delicate balance between (growth) and protecting these antique molds – they’re 140 years old and we only have them because they were saved from the war effort; we have about 40 and they were saved sentimentally by the daughters.”
Rigbyhandcraft.com stated: “Each mold, made out of brass and gemstones, is dipped into the surface of hot liquid tin. A thin layer of tin solidifies on the mold, making a perfect replica in relief. We then trim and hand-paint each ornament and mount a wire with an eye loop for a hook. The result is a sparkling, highly-detailed ornament that gives the illusion of being set with gemstones. Because the ornaments are made from pure tin, they will keep their shine and brilliance for many years to come.”
Rigby also “designs and produces a new collection each year, plus a limited edition Ornament of the Year … a practice started by her parents,” it states.
Customers, Rigby said, represent a mix.
“It’s kind of everyone,” she said. “It’s a lot of middle-aged people, but it’s also people that are getting into collecting Christmas ornaments for the first time or people that like the shininess or people that say, ‘Oh, it’s like my grandma’s tree’ or people that get an ornament from everywhere they go, and this is very Cooperstown,” she said. “It’s a fun time and we are definitely under the radar. It was always this fun, side thing (my parents) would do … but my dad is pretty well-known for his antique building repairs. We ship all over the world and I feel very supported and beloved by everyone. People come in and say, ‘I bought ornaments from your dad.’”
The ornaments and more are featured in Rigby’s 43 Pioneer St., Cooperstown retail shop, the Makery, opened in September 2024.
“It’s our year of expansions,” she said. “We went from being online, one employee — just me — to now I have a couple people working for me, we have a storefront and online, and we rented two spaces downtown. I needed a workspace; I was working at three studios and it was driving me a little insane — casting out of one studio and then moving to another studio to ship. Two storefronts in one building opened up last year … so everything worked.
“So, we are trying out this brick-and-mortar thing this year, and it’s a lot of work but we feel very supported,” Rigby continued. “It’s Christmas every day, and the ornaments are just part of our shop. Everything is handmade, and we’ve got handmade items from 30 artists and craft kits and we do a tools and materials exchange, so people donate unwanted craft supplies to us to keep it out of the landfill and we just charge a processing fee; I want to keep crafting accessible.”
For more information on the ornament-making process, follow @zinn_brilliant on Instagram and TikTok or visit rigbyhandcraft.com. For more information on the storefront, follow rigby_handcraft on Instagram.