About Japanese Repository and Ron

This company was established in 1991 by Ron Fromkin. Ron grew up in New York and received a BA degree from Long Island University in Art education in 1971. While attending LIU, He was also enrolled in Army ROTC, at Hofstra University. Upon graduation Ron was commissioned in the U.S. Army and after some schooling served 2 ½ years in Europe in the Special weapons field. Ron began finding and restoring antiques in Europe as a hobby.

Upon return to the States in 1974, there were no teaching jobs available so fate and necessity led him to a law enforcement career in South Florida. Ron retired from Police work after 30 years as Commander of the Criminal Investigations Division of the Margate Police Department. Margate has 120 sworn Officers and serves 50,000 people in Broward County Florida, just north of Miami. Most of his career was spent on street level and joint Federal narcotics investigations, in South Florida, and throughout the United States.

Ron always had an interest in carving, antique restoration, firearms repair and restoration. He spent many years restoring antique weapons as a part time business.

In 1991 everything changed. A local dealer produced a European ivory carving that needed work. Some ivory scrap was found and a long learning process and obsession began. He would only work on ivory and put all other work aside. The next 8 years was spent learning about ivory and developing techniques to restore damaged carvings. There is no school or book to learn from. Mastering carving techniques, acquiring tools and special equipment and building a large library of references continued for many years. After many thousands of repairs and restorations it was time to get serious. He learned how to turn ivory, bone and wood on a lathe and developed an expertise on ivory and other natural materials. The business expanded when Chess collectors and cane collectors sought his skills.

Ron has lectured several times to Antique Appraisers in South Florida and has lectured three times at the International meetings of the Chess Collectors International (CCI) organization.  Lectures covered identifying ivory and other natural materials and repair techniques.

Ron’s client list includes many of the major ivory and chess dealers in the United States and many prominent collectors of ivory, Napoleonic Prisoner of War bone carvings, chess sets, Black Forest Carvings and canes.

Ron and his wife Marcia have been married for 30 years and have 2 fine grown sons, Steve and Bob.