History
Charles Alexander See II (1882–1949) was born in Gananoque, Ontario, Canada, and came to California in 1921[15] with his wife Florence MacLean Wilson See (1885–1956), with whom he had three children: Laurance Alexander See (1912–1969), Margaret M. See (1913–1961) and Charles B. "Harry" See (1921–1999), who was born after they arrived in the U.S.[16] and his widowed mother Mary Wiseman See (1854–1939). They lived in Pasadena, California and Charles A. See II worked as a druggist.[17] Mary See had developed the recipes that became the foundation of the See's candy business while helping run her husband's hotel on Tremont Island, one of the Thousand Islands, in Ontario, Canada. Mary See had been born on Howe Island, Ontario, Canada, and eventually moved back to the town of Gananoque, Ontario, where she and her husband had lived. She died there in 1939 and is buried with her husband at Willowbank Cemetery.
The family opened the first See's Candies shop and kitchen at 135 North Western Avenue in Los Angeles in November 1921.[15] They had 12 shops by the mid-1920s and operated thirty shops during the Great Depression. See's first white and black "all porcelain" store was opened in Bakersfield, California, on May 1, 1941.[18] In 1936, See's opened a shop in San Francisco. It moved operations to make creams and truffles (60% of product sales)[19] to South San Francisco in order to take advantage of the region's cooler average temperatures compared to southern California.
Laurance A. See's divorce from his wife Elizabeth led to a landmark community property opinion in 1962 by Chief Justice Roger J. Traynor of the California Supreme Court for a unanimous court.[20] According to the opinion, Laurance worked for See's Candies, Inc. for the entirety of the twenty-one years of his marriage, served as president of its retail subsidiary for most of that time, and "received more than $1,000,000 in salaries from the two corporations".[20] The See case is still included in 21st century textbooks for future lawyers[21] and financial advisers.[22] In 1972, the See family sold the company, which generated $4 million in pre-tax profit that year, to Berkshire Hathaway for $25 million.[23] On January 3, 1972, Blue Chip obtained a controlling interest in See's Candy Shops. Blue Chip later acquired 100% of See's for an overall price of $25 million. Wesco Financial Corporation was an 80.1% owned subsidiary of Blue Chip Stamps until its complete merger into Berkshire Hathaway in 2011. Warren Buffett has called See's "the prototype of a dream business" (2007).
The "couverture" chocolate used by See's is provided by the nearby Guittard Chocolate Company,[28] and nuts come from Mariani Nut Company of nearby Winters, California.[29] On June 20, 2012, See's Candies was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records for the world's largest lollipop, a giant chocolate lollipop weighing 7,003 lb and measuring 4 ft long, 3 ft wide, and 5 ft high, equivalent to 145,000 regular-size lollipops.[30] The previous largest lollipop record stood at 6,514 lb.
, the price of See's chocolates is more than $30 a pound.[31]
