6 Oct 2023

The truth behind the brand House of Salmi

He has been quiet and out of business for a few years, but he´s active again.

We wish to warn people not to trust him, he has betrayed so many customers and each and every one he has ever worked with. People have not oly lost their money, sometimes the last tail hair of the beloved horse as well.

Horsehair jewellery nannasalmi

Nanna Salmi has a long experience and history as a weaver and textile designer. As she got a horse, she had a new material in her hands: tail hair. She was very exited about it and decided to try weaving with hair.

She figured out how to make smooth and fine ribbons and started to develope and design a jewellery collection with a woven tail hair ribbon. It wasn´t that easy, but in cooperation with the goldsmith the problems and numerous challenges combining tail hair ribbon and precious metals were solved and the current nannasalmi collection was born. The first collection ever with a woven tailhair ribbon.

designer Nanna Salmi

House of Salmi

The business of House of Salmi is based on copying, cheating, lying and fraud. Tax obligations have not been taken care of, debts have not been paid, customers and other retailers have been cheated. Nanna's business secrets have been shared with other companies, the partners (goldsmith, other retailers) have been lied to. This all sounds quite unbelieveable, but unfortunately it´s all true.

The man behind the brand "House of Salmi" is Tomi Salmi (TS, b. 1971). He started to work with Nanna Salmi (NS) 2004 and his job discription was a salesman. He had an own company Equisetum Ky. Part of his job discription was also to updated the nannasalmi Facebook page and administering the home page nannasalmi.com.

TS travelled a lot and business was going very well for both Nanna Salmi and Tomi Salmi. He found new retailers in Denmark, France, Ireland and Japan. Also a famous Italian riding cloth tailor started selling nannasalmi collection.

TS received orders and money from customers. NS wove the ribbons, goldsmith did his job and Tomi sent, or was supposed to send ready items to customers and retailers. Soon NS had so much weaving work that she gave TS more responsibility. And why not; basically you think you can trust the family.

In 2012 strange things started to happen and to come out.

COUNTERFEITING OF DOCUMENTS
TS changed the numbering of orders to chronological on 30.01.2012. TS wanted to change a goldsmith from Lahti to his home town (Turku, Nousiainen) to make things work ”more fluently”, and as a result NS did not see the ready made items anymore before they were sent to the customers, nor did she know about the true number of orders.

According to Nanna Salmi´s own order book, not all orders came to her, but TS apparently delivered about a hundred pieces of jewellery past NS. The assumption is that he had used ribbons supplied by NS for jewellery that had never been delivered to customers, or TS had another weaver as a partner already at that time who had woven ribbons for the jewellery of "nannasalmi collection".

The document forgeries came to light by chance, as some customers contacted NS directly and inquired after the jewellery they had ordered and paid for.

TS also reported cheaper jewellery to be ordered in order to reduce NS's share.

This wasn´t enough, he got greedier and greedier...

nannasalmi Facebook page 
In the beginning of working together NS and TS both had the right to publish images and text on the FB page. At some point TS removed ownership of the page from NS and began managing the content of the pages alone.

Subsequently, it was emerged that TS, without the knowledge and consent of NS, had also set up regional FB pages which appeared to the founder and administrator and FB users in certain countries. These regional pages were at least for European German-speaking areas, South America and propably also the British Isles. The international "main page" was displayed in all countries.

As TS had blocked visibility from Finnish users, NS was not even aware of the existence of regional sites, not to mention what kind of trading TS was doing there. He had discount sales and auctions of which NS was not notified. He also had ”Livery yard prices” which were much lower than current list prices approved by NS.

All this was preparation for ”a great take over”.

ACQUISITION PLANNING / PREPARATION FOR MAJOR FRAUD
In 2011, Jodilyn Morel (Canada) had expressed her desire to become a retailer for nannasalmi jewellery in North America (USA, Canada). NS wove ribbons for JM's model jewellery and co-operation was in its infancy.

In October 2012, NS received an email from Jodi Morel. Attached was a draft contract prepared by TS from May 2012 for them a joint venture (TS and JM) to manufacture and market nannasalmi in the USA and Canada.

In the draft agreement TS proposes to Morel a $ 50,000 purchase for the rights of nannasalmi jewellery models. This transaction amount was to be paid to TS. The company would have owned TS 30% and JM 70%.

Nanna Salmi did not know about the draft agreement before receiving an email from JM in October 2012.

Jodi Morel's husband is a lawyer. He thought there was something strange about the contract pattern and he had urged JM to contact NS to check if NS is aware of such rights sales and agreements and what would be NS 's role in the case.

NS wasn´t aware of this agreement. TS had no rights to sell nannasalmi collection rights to anyone or even to negotiate for such.

This was a moment he started to consider himself as "a designer" and the owner of the brand nannasalmi. We still don´t know what made him to think that great and stupendous about himself, but you may be able to draw your own conclusions.

He wanted to change "expensive" Finnish goldsmith to a cheaper (Estonian) goldsmith. The quality of work didn´t fulfill NS´s standards. Without NS knowing or her permission TS also had changes made in designs in order to save in gold and white gold price.

LOSSES OF RETAILERS
For some time TS told everyone that NS was retired, no longer involved in jewellery business, and that he, TS, controlles all areas of manufacturing and sales. He also forbade the goldsmith, retailers and customers to be in touch with NS.

The Italian retailer resigned due to unreliability of TS. The reasons were the same as for the other retailers and individual customers: deliveries were late for months, even years.

A French Company, a former retailer, copied Nanna Salmi's innovation and idea, at least one jewellery model and ribbon designs designed by Nanna Salmi, and sold them as their own collection in French-speaking Europe. They have stopped now.

In spring 2012 TS asked Denmark´s retailer to send the model jewellery collection to TS to be cleaned.  In November 2012 some of the jewelleries were still in TS's possession and not returned to the retailer. It is doubtful that due to financial difficulties of his company, TS has not been able to supply jewelleries to customers, but he had resold the retailer's model jewellery to new customers. Cooperation ended, of course.

The Irish retailer wanted to stop selling the collection as well. TS explained the delays  that "NS had not supplied ribbons to be attached to the jewellery in time", "jewellery lost in the mail", "ribbons lost in the mail", etc. Endless lies and explanations.

When all this started to come out NS told TS that their cooperation had come to the end. How did he react?

TS changed the nannasalmi pages into House of Salmi pages and deleted nannasalmi.com home page.

Haus von Salmi Betrug



TS stole NS´s invention, business idea and customers and unauthorized copied NS´s designs and started his own business as House of Salmi. This is how he introduced himself:

"The House of Salmi is the new brand by designer Tomi Salmi. He comes from an artistic family and follows in the footsteps of his family member, who years ago began designing jewellery with horsehair."

All ”his designs” are slightly modified copies of the nannasalmi jewellery collection. He has no background or education of any kind as a designer or an artist. Before his carreer as ”a designer” he had worked as a bouncer and a welder at a shipyard in Turku, Finland.

In the jewellery business anyone who has ever worked with him (till now) has stopped cooperating with him. The reasons have been always the same: unreliability and ambiguities in financial matters.

Nowadays TS lives in Germany, Aachen, but the HoS company page says that the company is registered in UK.

TS left Finland when debts started piling up. He had debt to the Finnish tax office almost 170 000 €, and for other parties ca. 36 000 €. This includes a loan from Finnvera, ca. 20 000 €. Finnvera is a Finnish state-owned financing company, the official export credit agency for Finland. Finnvera provides loans, credits and guarantees. Finnvera also finances start-up enterprises. The company is responsible to the Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy.

These numbers are from official documents which anybody can order to be seen and we can prove the numbers.

MEANWHILE ANOTHER BUSINESS
Those days TS also started a company with his brother. His brother worked, and still does in a company designing fair stands for big international companies like Lexus, IBM etc. He invented and developed a new kind of a fair structure which was easy, light, protean and economical. He knew the challenges of building fair stands and used his creativity and knowledge to solve those problems.

TS wanted to help him with marketing and the production started in a cooperation with a company specialized in aluminium constructions. As soon as orders and money came in, TS withdrew all the money from the company bank account and left for Florida for three months with his family. The other brother has paid the subcontractors their money since then, tens of thousands of Euros.

nannasalmi TODAY
NS never stopped working. Goldsmith work was taken back to Finland and the designs were returned back to the original ones. NS still works with the same goldsmith with whom she has worked since the beginning, now for over twenty years, Marjut Viitanen.

Since TS was no more a part of her business, there has been no problems with delivery times or quality of the jewellery.

Besides the retailers in the other countries her ”saleswoman” now is her daughter, Minna. She has created the web page horsehair jewellery nannasalmi.com, she updates social media (Facebook in English, Finnish and German, Instagram) and takes care of customer service and invoicing.

But each item made for a customer, you, is from Nanna Salmi herself. She receives the precious hair strands, weaves the ribbon and finally sends the ready made item to you.

nannasalmi horsehair jewellery has over 3000 happy customers all over the world. Nanna Salmi´s work as a designer and innovator is recognized among other jewellery designers and goldsmiths. Some of her pieces of jewellery are also in the collection of Finnish museum of Horology and Jewelry Kruunu in Espoo.

We are glad and grateful for you staying with us, the original collection. You can support us by following us in Facebook and Instagram, liking and sharing. Thank you!

Customers testimonials about House of Salmi:






3 Mar 2023

Finnhorse in a forest work

In many cultures, the horse has always been an important partner in forest work and fields, in Finland, too. The importance of the horse in forest work was emphasized when the forest industry with sawmills and paper mills needed large amounts of wood raw material from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Back in the early 1960s, the timber cut from the forests was almost entirely hauled away by horses. Although tractors started to become more common on farms, agricultural tractors were initially too inefficient for forest work. In the procurement period 1960-1961, there were still around 55,000 horses in forest work in Finland, but in 1970 only 17,300.

Source: Kajaani.fi, Kajaanin museo

Following photos by Tessa Lepistö and Tanja Lundsten

Suomenhevonen metsätöissä, Tuohivirsu

Today they are hardly used at all, but now their use has started to be appreciated again and many manage their own forest with a horse and offer services to others as well.

Finnhorse Tuohivirsu enjoys forest work. He loves it being in the forest and work, and of course he enjoys the company of the team. Tuohivirsu´s owner is Tanja Lundsten.

suomenhevonen metsätöissä

A horse and winter are a good combination in terms of the well-being of the forest. In Finland the ground freezes to a depth of 20–60 cm on average during the winter months, in the north the depth of frost can be up to 120 cm. The icy ground protects the roots of the trees, and the passage of a horse in the forest does not damage the soil. A horse can also travel through a denser forest than a machine, so when working with a horse there is no need for clearcutting.

suomenhevonen metsätöissä

Hay for Tuohivirsu...

Nokipannukahvit

...and coffee for the rest of the team. "Sootpot coffee" tastes extremely delicious outside by the fire.

suomenhevonen metsätöissä

"You gave me the very first horsehair jewellery you made from Nitte´s (Nanna´s first horse) and Ogi's tailhair. One was a graduation present and the other as a thank you for Nitte's care. It especially felt and still feels particularly meaningful. Nitte is one of those horses that has been special to me in my life, Tuohivirsu, too."

Teija Ranin, Finland

Thank you, Teija, for your kind words and letting us to see these lovely pictures. We wish you, Tanja and extremely handsome Tuohivirsu many happy working years yet to come!

Follow Tuohivirsu in Facebook or in Instagram, and see more!

"Horse forest work is a suitable alternative for small and sensitive harvesting sites. For example, cultural and historical sites, it is possible to manage ancient remains and urban forests with the help of a horse logger. The harvest mark is really little and horse harvesting does not cause emission or noise problems. The demand for horse forest work will continue to grow in the future."
Thesis, Kirsi Nuutinen: Suomenhevonen metsätyössä (Finnhorse in a forest work) 2011

Metsätöitä hevosen kanssa 50-luvulla

Forest work in 1950´s, photo from Kainuun museo collection.

And if you wonder what "Tuohivirsu" means: it´s a name for a traditional
Finnish shoe made of birchbark.