The America’s Cup is the oldest international sports competition in the world, and the trophy for the sailing challenge was made back in 1848 — 178 years ago. So back in the early 2010s, when Bay Area billionaire and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison had a chance to examine the trophy ahead of hosting the main event in San Francisco in 2013, he decided to make some aesthetic changes.

But when the trophy arrived at Biro & Sons, a San Francisco family of silversmiths that have been on Folsom Street in the SoMa neighborhood for almost 50 years, the America’s Cup team didn’t just send the trophy.

“They sent Larry Ellison’s private security,” Rick Biro recalled to SFGATE in an interview this spring. “They have a Louis Vuitton custom-made case for this thing. One of the guys reaches into the back of the SUV [for the trophy], his coat comes up and he’s packing a Glock.

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“I thought, ‘Holy s—t, what are we getting into here?’”

FILE: Oracle Team USA skipper James Spithill and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison celebrate with the America’s Cup trophy after they beat Emirates Team New Zealand skippered by Dean Barker in race 19 to win the America’s Cup Finals on Sept. 25, 2013, in San Francisco.

From left, Rick Biro, Alex Biro and Martin Biro inside their workshop at Biro & Sons Silversmiths in San Francisco on April 9, 2026.

From there, the Biro family — father Alex and sons Martin and Rick — were ready to take the trophy to their upstairs workshop. The guards had different plans, and insisted they had to keep the trophy in their vision. So for that time, the Biros worked on the trophy with armed supervision.

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That certainly was one of the more eventful work periods for the Biro family. But the reason the America’s Cup ended up there is because of the family’s more than 80 years in the business, one that started an ocean away.

Alex Biro grew up in Hungary and first learned the silversmithing trade as a teenager from his uncle in 1945. He married his wife Ethel in Budapest, and the couple had their elder son, Martin. In 1956, when the Hungarian Revolution was shut down by the Soviet Union, the family fled the country and took a winding journey — through Austria, the Netherlands and Montreal — to get to San Francisco, where Alex’s brother lived.

The youngest Biro, Rick, was born when his family landed in the City by the Bay, eight years after his older brother. 

Once settled, Alex quickly found work again as a........

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