Coronado Lifestyle

Home > Coronado Lifestyle Archive > Meet The Jewelers

Meet The Jewelers

By Nancy McRae

All that glitters...

How did you get started in the jewelry business in Coronado?
Greg Walker, del Coronado Jewels: My parents bought the jewelry shop in 1958 and dragged me down here from beautiful British Columbia. Back then we were a huge store, and besides us, there was only Coury’s Town and Country and an Indian jewelry gift store at the Hotel Del Coronado.

I went to high school in Coronado, then to San Diego State University. I was working in public administration when, in 1979, my parents announced they were going to close shop. I thought “Why not take a two-year leave of absence, build up the business, see if we could get more for it.” That was 24 years ago. It’s been fun ever since. In the jewelry business, you always have happy customers.

Jackie Jones, Southwestern Indian Den: While we were living in Arizona, my husband and business partner Daryl became fascinated with Indian jewelry and acquired some beautiful pieces. At the time, he was working for a Fortune 500 company, and his job took him all over the country. Wherever he traveled people kept asking about his jewelry, and wanted to buy it right off him! He thought “Gee, maybe I ought to be filling up my briefcase with Indian jewelry instead of paperwork.” So he did, and sales were so successful that soon we were shipping items all over the country.

Rodney Johnson, Muhl’s Jewelers: When my family bought the business in 1970, it was a little watch and gift shop. Coronado was still so beautiful, charming and quiet then. The bridge had just opened and people wouldn’t drive across it. Who knew, it might fall down! Remember Orange Avenue when the Del Mar horse races were on? Half of the businesses would close up and head off for the races! Those were the good old days.

Ours is the oldest established jewelry store in all San Diego County. I have tools in the business dating from the 1880’s and store records from 1918. The fixtures are all original, including the counters, which were built around 1920. I grew up loving the jewelry business and went on to study at the Gemological Institute of America.

Linda Austin, Tesoro Mio: I opened Tesoro Mio seven years ago because I couldn’t take another day of working for someone else. However, while I was still “employed,” a friend invited me to the Fashion Market show. I went bananas looking at all the beautiful costume and ethnic jewelry. I bought a few pieces to sell to the women where I worked, and sold everything in an hour. I knew I was on to something! For six months, I’d go to market, buy jewelry, and sell every piece in one day at my office.

An inheritance gave me my chance, so I went to a class on entrepreneurship at Southwestern College. I spent a long time looking for a place to open a shop, but Coronado is expensive. One day I noticed a little sign in the window where I am now, and that was my lucky break. The landlord signed a lease with me because I was the only person who had approached him with an actual business plan.

Houman Omidifar, Houman Jewelry Design: My parents had a jewelry store in Iran. When I was a kid I had my fingers into everything. I drove my parents crazy, but they couldn’t get me out of the store! I’ve always loved working with my hands. I went to high school in France and then moved to Toronto where I attended a top-rated college specializing in jewelry design, drawing, casting, manufacturing, carving and setting. I graduated at the top of my class with honors.

I started my jewelry design business in my attic with $1,000. I was on such a tight budget, I used the discarded wood from construction sites to build my benches. But many jewelry stores knew who I was, so within eight months I was busy.

About this time, the Platinum Guild International had a nationwide competition. I didn’t have enough money to buy the material, so I put the whole cost of 80 grams of platinum on a credit card. Everyone thought I was crazy! The necklace I designed and made took 180 hours of labor because I made every piece of it by hand. I sent it to New York for judging and won an award. I was invited to New York for the Jewelers of America show, and as Jewelers Quarterly magazine was taking a picture of the award-winners, I looked around me and knew that
every other winner was from a multi-million dollar company. No one knew I had made my piece
in my attic!

I got tired of the cold weather back east, so I moved to San Diego and designed jewelry for high-end stores. I wanted to get into retail, and as I was scouting potential locations, I came to Coronado. I knew this was the place I wanted to be. I had lived on Nantucket, so I am used to island living.

What are the important factors to consider when one is buying jewelry? How can the average person tell a great piece from a fake?

Johnson: It’s very difficult. For example, I go to Asia to buy rubies in large lots — a cross-section of qualities and sizes. I drive out to the mine in a Jeep with a gazillion bucks. If I didn’t have some gemological training, I’d be a “babe in the woods.”

Rubies, emeralds, sapphires are the easiest to reproduce in a laboratory. In Asia, you can expect the lots to always be salted with synthetics. I literally have to sort stone by stone to remove the synthetics. It also helps to know and trust the people you’re working with. One of our favorite families are miners and cutters in Brazil. There are no middlemen. When we visit their site to purchase, for example, 1,800 carats of alexandrite, we know we’re getting the real deal. We’ll buy both small stones and the important and/or exotic stones from them.

Walker: The answer to your question about discerning real from fake is why you are listening to family stories. It takes a long time to build a reputation and a name that people will come to trust. We do very well with “created stones.” It’s our niche. We’ve been selling a laboratory-created sapphire since the 1960s, made in Ashland, Oregon. It’s evolved over the years into a wonderful quality, heavy weight, beautiful color. Customers come back year after year to buy the whole line from earrings to necklace to rings. Costume jewelry can be cast in base metals, like my crown pins, that would be unaffordable in a setting of platinum.

Jones: Nowadays, even the experts can’t always guarantee quality materials because there are so many extraordinarily good reproductions and manufactured gems on the market. As Rodney said, you need
to know whom you’re dealing with. We always purchase from the top artisans in the Southwest, going to the best venues, like the Heard Museum, which is the finest in the country for its Native American work, the Santa Fe markets, as well as an occasional swap meet in Albuquerque. Some of the finest artists get their start there. We spend time getting to know the individual artist, his inspiration, how he creates his pieces, where he gets his materials. Most artists are doing work that their fathers and grandfathers taught them. It’s part of their cultural heritage. Today we know these artists so well, we just go to their homes
on the “res” (reservation).

Houman: It takes a long time for customers to trust their jewelers. It’s the same thing for me working with dealers. I refuse to buy a diamond bigger than one-half carat unless it’s certified. That protects me, and the
customer who buys from me. For colored stones, I work with only four dealers whom I have known for many years. When I ask for a certain sapphire, I know that I’ll be getting a real sapphire, perfectly cut.

Do you buy stones and design around them, or do you have a design idea and look for the stones to fit it?

Houman: Some gem cutters cut stones for competitions. When I come across those stones, I buy them, because you won’t see them in every store. I have one stone that is 30+ carats. The price per carat for a
“competition” stone is five times more than for a regular cut jewelry stone. The value is in the cutter’s labor and the rarity of the cut. I study the stone, play with it, think of how I’m going to present it – a ring, a pendant, a necklace? What material will I do it in?

Except for rare stones, I design jewelry and then decide if I’m going to use sapphires, diamonds or something else. I study the market to determine what’s selling. I make the piece, then I make the call
for the stone.

How does estate jewelry compare to newer pieces. How do you find estate jewelry?

Johnson: It finds me! I love it. There’s a romance about it. The older pieces are so feminine, so beautifully assembled. Many of the designs today are a bolder, more European design. Currently, I have a very fine quality engagement ring that was given to a bride sometime around World War I. It’s fabulously simple, made by Bailey, Banks and Bittle, a good, old Eastern firm. When I have it in the window, people will knock their foreheads trying to get a better look! I put our “Saturday windows” together to showcase some really diverse and interesting pieces, and I can tell how successful I’ve been by the number of “forehead prints.”

Jones: Native American pawn pieces are not necessarily more valuable than newer pieces. They
hold their value, but don’t go up exorbitantly, unless it’s a signed piece by a famous artist. Indians did not start signing their jewelry until the 1950s, when the Japanese began copying Indian jewelry profusely and distributing it all over the world. The U.S. government subsequently required labeling of all imported goods, but the Indians also decided to “label” or hallmark their own products.

Johnson: All the finest jewelry houses, like Cartier and Tiffany, and Russian jewelry and English silver have deep cartouche-like marks that identify what city the piece was made in, who made it, where the tax was paid. Christ Episcopal Church brought out all their old silver from the church vaults a few years back. I had the opportunity to examine, weigh and trace the history of every piece. They have one piece of silver that possibly dates to the Civil War.

What are the trends in jewelry design today?

Walker: I’m about the last person to know! We’re a jewelry boutique, so I’m not in competition with every jewelry store in the world. Customers at the Del have traveled; they can get whatever they want wherever they want. I need to have something that other jewelry stores don’t carry. When we took over the store we
“inherited” the infamous crown pins. The original ones were designed by Mr. Bellini in New York in 1952 for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. Upon his retirement, Mr. Bellini sent my dad the crown mold, saying “You’re the only one left buying these things!” Crowns have always been our specialty. We’re in the perfect location for what we sell, the memento of Coronado and the Hotel Del.

Austin: When I go to the Fashion Market, I notice what’s in every booth. Last year it was pink. I hadn’t seen pink in any of the fashion magazines yet, but I saw it all over the market, so I bought pink. Pink coral, pink crystal, pink pearls, whatever pink I could get my hands on. Things show up in New York or at the shows a year, or sometimes two, before the public sees them. Not everything that works in New York is going to play here, however. Who wants to wear heavy, chunky jewelry to the beach?

Johnson: I like to stay up on trends, but you have to be careful. For example, black diamonds were a trend some years ago. Well, black diamonds are a nice design element, but personally I consider them glorified drill bits. Opalescent diamonds are an up-and-coming trend, but they, too, are an inferior diamond. Because of the investment required, jewelry trends must also have some credible longe-vity. An unsuccessful trend ends up
being the piece you bought a few years ago, but want to sell today because you’re tired of it. There’s nothing wrong with a Tiffany six-prong setting; it’s never going out of style!

Houman: Trends start at the big jewelry show in Basel, Switzerland, and make it to the U.S. the following year. The big trends I’m seeing now, especially for younger people, are that everything is being made with white gold or platinum, and, yes, the color pink is very popular.

Jones: A significant trend in Native American jewelry is the new, non-traditional stones being used. White opals, sugilite, even amber, which I never thought I’d see them do. Indian jewelry is also being influenced by movies like Frida. Frida wore big, natural stone necklaces in every color, and now these are selling like
hotcakes. It’s always a question of how much to buy and when.

Walker: So true! You buy ten items. Invariably, two will sell the first day. The rest will sell steadily, but one stubborn piece hangs on forever. I learned a long time ago, when something sells quickly, get more in. Of course, you wonder if it’s just a flash in the pan. We thought about that with the little flip-flops. But we can’t keep those in! They’ve become a classic. Coronado is now known for crowns and flip-flops.


Archive of Coronado Lifestyle Articles

Reprinted with permission from Coronado Lifestyle, "the little magazine with the BIG impact."
For advertising or out-of-town subscriptions, call Kris Grant, publisher/editor, at 619-522-0900.