Family focus sets Custom Jewelers apart . . .

What began as a hobby for Richard has evolved into a successful, family-owned and -operated business.

A do-it-yourself type of man, Richard found himself drawn to jewelry design in an interesting fashion. “I had friends who were jewelers and I have always been the kind of person who if I see someone do something once, I can do it,” explains Richard. Starting from a shop in his home, Richard now runs, along with his son Tony, two locations of Custom Jewelers.

But the family connections don’t stop there. Both Richard and Tony’s wives work in the stores and Richard’s other son, Kevin, will fill in if they are especially busy. “It is about as family as you get,” says Richard. Even Kevin’s fiancee is an employee. The future is around the corner, with both Richard and Tony thinking of a third generation working at Custom Jewelers. Tony’s daughter, Taylor, appeared in one of their advertisements when she was only two.

Besides the blood ties, many of the employees are like family as well. Two of the store’s master jewelers have been with them since the beginning of the business, as has one of their salesmen.

Richard started out in 1985 at a smaller location at 806 Merritt Drive. Custom Jewelers was one of eight stores in the building. Overtime, as other stores left or went out of business, he took over their spaces until Custom Jewelers occupied the entire building.

A little over 10 years later, he moved to a new location at 2201 Merritt Drive. Then in the summer of 2000, he expanded to his second location at 2447 Battleground Avenue. Custom Jewelers had so many customers driving from across town, it seemed logical and convenient to expand in that direction. “It has worked out well for us,” says Richard.

The family atmosphere might be the first thing you notice about Custom Jewelers, but the stores are known equally well for their custom jewelry design, as well as their onsite repairs. Many of the items in their showcase are done by their designers and are available only at their stores. “We do a lot of one of a kind pieces,” explains Tony. “We take customers’ old rings and redesign them to give them a new look.”

A major part of the custom design business for Custom Jewelers is in bridal and wedding rings. The staff will work with the customer to finalize a desired look, sketching out the piece to their specifications, then carving the ring out of wax. The next step is to do a cast of the design. The customer is involved throughout the entire process, ensuring that the design is exactly what they envisioned and want.

It isn’t just diamonds and wedding bands however. The shop deals with all the normal gem stones available, as well as many more distinctive and unusual stones. They have done designs with Boulder opals from Australia, as well as Imperial topaz and tanzanite. “People come here for that reason -- they know if they come here they won’t find run-of-the-mill type jewelry. They will find more unique pieces,” explains Tony.

One unique piece they designed was centered around a 36-carat cabochon emerald. They used the emerald to create a frog broach with the emerald as the frog’s body and 18-karat gold as the legs. “That gives you an idea of things we can do,” says Richard.

While most jewelry stores send their repairs offsite, Richard and Tony are proud of the fact that they not only do repairs at each location, but they take in repairs for other jewelry stores as well. They have even helped repair a piece for the Smithsonian that had been damaged in shipment. The same attention to detail and focus on top-quality that they bring to their own, custom-designs, Custom Jewelers brings to the repair work it does.

“We will look at anything and 90 percent of it we can do,” says Richard. Both men stress that for most people, jewelry is a sentimental thing, and the value is purely emotional. That is why they will usually try to repair even costume jewelry, as long as the customer understands the risks. “A lot of places, if it isn’t a $100 repair, won’t think it’s worth trying,” says Tony.

Although Richard retired from the day to day operations in the summer of 2005, his advice and motivation is never more than a phone call away. We strive to focus on the vision that Richard had when he began Custom Jewelers many years ago...to focus on custom design and - more importantly - to focus on our customers.