Is Your Old Jewelry a Gold Mine? Custom Design Secrets & The Future of Craftsmanship

We had gone in real early to talk to him about it, because it was the first time he came up with him, is what it was, because the other one had held over for so long. And we waited, we didn't wait, we very early started talking, and we sent him, what we'd like, because they gave us an initial draft of it. And what they did was they kept stalling and waiting until he took like nine months to where it was only three months before it ended. So it was like a tactic that they did, like just stalled. Yeah, scared. So then you're up to three months, you really have no power left when you got three months left. I mean, there's no way we could move, and he knows that. Right.

Not with just three months. Yeah. So then they came back and the lawyer, who we were using at the time, said, "Yeah, that's very typical, "that's a tactic that they'll do "to just back you into a corner." Yeah.

So that really was very frustrating.

I've never actually formally met him. Never met him at all the time we've been there. I mean, I've seen him coming down, but I've never actually. He's a customer of ours, so we've done a bit of-- Oh, good. Oh, I'm happy to hear that, that's good. I think it was his ex-wife, they're not together anymore, right? No. No.

His ex used to come in.

I think she was a piece. You good over there? You good over there, what's that? I'm all set. This is a little camera, it takes some minutes. Oh, okay, oh, nice. And what's this light over here? That is a new one that I bought, but the charger that came with it's a little finicky.

(Laughing) It's like, when something electronic arrives and it's like maybe 50% charged. Yeah. I'm like, I don't want that to go out in the middle of this, so. Oh, gotcha, yeah. It's like our backup. Yeah. But. Yeah, I just never saw it before, so I wonder what it was. Let's check it out, let's see what it is. Yeah, I found it. A bunch of cool doohickies coming in like this is new. Oh, I see that. Oh yeah, yeah, that's a powerhouse, man. Oh yeah, that's. It's a heavy duty one. Yeah, that's nice.

And then that can get an arm like moving out all the way over top. Oh, with an arm, oh, that's clever. I made it out to the beach to fill it. (Laughing) Oh, so, okay, so when the sandbags are there, then you can use the arm, because you gotta have it mounted down, yeah. Otherwise it's the same doohick. Yeah. Yeah. Clunking on somebody's head. Yeah. Yeah. Don't want that. No. All right, Jensen, for sure. How's the, how was Christmas season for you guys? It was really good, yeah. Is that usually busier than January, February, March for you? Or how's Christmas time for you? Christmas is really good for us.

And then when January comes, then usually the first couple weeks are transitional. People are coming back from wherever they went for Christmas and the holidays. And then right after, right about now, mid-January is when we start going. Yeah. Really, really busy all the way, hopefully through May. Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, hopefully. But you have that same window where Christmas is not like

Make it like most retailers, Christmas is just the time. It's where it's gonna be. Yeah, no, luckily that's not the case.

Usually March, February, March are better than December, which is crazy because usually you would think a lot of people spend all their money for Christmas gifts and that kind of thing. And then they aren't really buying very much after that, but that's not the case. Yeah, I think in the rest of the world, it's like that, but in here, it's different here. Yeah, Naples is different. Yeah. Definitely. It's its own thing. Well, you, so New Hampshire is your original. Yeah, that's where my parents started their first jewelry store in Lincoln, New Hampshire, right at the base of Loon Mountain Ski Resort.

My dad was a traveling salesman for the Diamond Label Maker Company, the click, click machines with the raised white letters. Is that right, yeah. Yeah, he was their number one salesman and he was on commission, but then they switched him to a salary. So he took a pretty big pay cut and he'd always had a dream of opening up a jewelry store. And at that point, we were living in Massachusetts and we were building a summer house in New Hampshire. And my parents called up the architect and told him, maybe make it a bit bigger so it can be our primary residence. So they did that and we ended up moving before the house was finished and we were living on Squam Lake.

And then that's where there was a movie on Golden Pond. Oh yeah. It was filmed there. Oh really? Yeah. Oh wow. Yeah. And so the house is being finished and we were driving up to Lincoln every day and there are pictures on our website of my parents in front of this tent with a country squire pulled up to it and they had to put the jewelry in and take it out every day and drive home. And I was just like seven or eight at the time. So I was pretty young, but he was following his passion. Wow. So. Running the business out of a tent, just building this. Yeah. So I don't recommend it, but it worked out okay for us. Yeah, but he was just following his heart.

It was something he had always wanted to do. And what was that like for you as a kid

Going through that? Because I had a similar experience with my dad when going through his stuff. What was it like for you? Because you had to move? It was a bit from where you were? Yeah, it was rough. I'll be honest, when we first opened

There wasn't a whole lot of money coming in and we had just made a big move and built a house. So things were pretty lean. And so I think it brings people closer together though. Just made us stronger. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any siblings? Yes, I'm the youngest of four. I've got a sister. She's about a year and a half older than I am. And then I've got my brother, Bill. He's five years older than I am and he lives in Atlanta. And then my brother, Dave, who is also in the jewelry business. He's nine years older than I am. He's in the jewelry business too. Yes. Where is he? He's in Durham, North Carolina. And his son is also a goldsmith and his wife is a gemologist. Wow.

Yep. The lineage goes all the way. Yep. So you were always kind of around it because even though he wasn't in the business till later, he was always sort of tinkering with jewelry? Yeah. In the mid fifties, he went to Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois

For watchmaking and for jewelry.

So he had had the passion for that long. Oh, okay. But it didn't really work out for him. So then he was the salesman and then he still couldn't shut off that desire to open his own store. Yeah. So they did that in the summer of 74. And then during the winter, people wanted to know where they could find him because you can't have a tent at the bottom of a ski resort. Yeah. So they moved into a brick and mortar place. And there were a lot of other people that did the same thing that my parents did, but they were in, they made soap and candles and tapestries and leather works and that kind of thing. And so he took some of their art and put it in his jewelry store.

And it was called Craftsmen's Gift Gallery.

And so he had all of their things in there. And then as they sold, he didn't replace them. So then it was just a jewelry store. Okay. So is that area kind of resort? So it's all around skiing. Yeah. But in the summer then, there's a different type of, there's still people that go there. It's like an art fair every weekend.

Oh, okay. And so as a kid being around that, where did your interests come about?

Well, I wasn't really interested in joining the business at all. I was going to school at, we, after New Hampshire, we moved to Texas in 1980 because there was a snow shortage in New England. And-- So your family moved to Texas? Yes. Yep. We moved the jewelry store there. We were just outside of Dallas in Plano, Texas. Okay. And I was going to school at Texas Tech at the time. And my parents ended up moving here in 88, 87, 88, to open the store in Naples. And then coincidentally, my brother worked for the jewelry store that was in my parents' old location.

And so he was making jewelry and during the summer and during Christmas break and that kind of thing, I would go see him. And at one point, I'm in the jewelry store, it's Christmas time. He's like, "Grab a saw frame and help me out." And sized this ring for me. So I had no experience whatsoever. What's a saw frame? A saw frame is just like a coping saw, a little saw that you would just use to cut pieces of wire and sheet and that kind of thing out of silver and gold and platinum. Okay. So he-- Grab one of those and get to work. Yep, that was pretty much it. Really? And I took a semester off from school and I ended up working for, it was called My Diamond Shop.

And I was working with my brother on the workbench. And that was in the late 80s. And then my parents opened up their store here in Naples. And then--

How did they go from, so first they went from the Northeast to Texas and then to here. Yep. How'd that come about with that? Yeah, well in Texas, if you remember, in the mid 80s, there was a oil crunch. And a lot of our customers were in the oil business. Yes. Just like with the snow shortage, it ended up making our store on the slow side. Yes. And so my mom's sister's daughter

She came to Fort Myers and Naples on spring break. She went to Duke University. And she was telling her parents, you have got to check out Naples. It is so nice. And at the time they were about to retire. Yeah. So they came here and they saw Naples and they really, really liked it. And then my aunt Ruth said to my mom, you've got to check out Naples. So they came to visit. And at the time Venetian Village was just being designed basically. And they talked to a couple realtors to find out where a good shopping center would be. And they said, the Venetian Village is just opening up. You can pretty much put your store anywhere you want to.

And at the time there was only the North side of Venetian Village. And there's a walkway now that goes under Park Shore. And then there's a South side. But when my parents opened their store, there was no South side. So we were kind of at the outskirts of the North side and a lot of people didn't even know we were there. But they knew that once the South side opened, that there would be a lot of traffic going under that, through the tunnel. That's right. I didn't think about that too. That's ideal for that. Cause everybody coming from either way is going to go by there. Yeah. Yeah, that's brilliant.

So as soon as the South side opened and there was a lot more traffic going from North to South, then the business picked up and we got busy. And they asked me if I wanted to join the business because they needed another goldsmith. It was just my dad, my mom and a bookkeeper.

And so they said, this position is going to be filled. Would you like the opportunity to join the business? And I said, sure, that sounds good. So- To move here. Cause you didn't live here yet, right? No, I was still in Texas. And so I came to visit my parents over spring break and I saw what an opportunity it was. So I ended up accepting the position and gave notice at the old store and I had a going away party and that's when I met my wife-to-be. Was it the going away party to move- For you to move here? Yeah. Is that right? Oh, I thought it was before that. I didn't realize it was your party to come here. Wow.

Yeah, we had a lot of mutual friends and everyone said for a long time that we should meet each other cause we were so much alike and I finally met her at my going away party. So I thought, geez, here's the girl of my dreams. Just my luck, now I'm moving away. Yeah, yeah. So she was going to University of Texas at Dallas at the time. And so we had a long distance relationship for about a year or so. And then- And that was when you had to pay for long distance calls too. It was. (Both Laughing) And she was a starving college student so she didn't really have a lot of money but I didn't really have a lot to spend money on. So I invested in my future, I guess you might say.

We spent a lot of time on the phone. Yeah, yeah, cause it would cost a lot though. Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So you made that work for about a year? Yeah, And she was going to graduate and so I felt really good about her and my relationship and I asked her if she wanted to move to Naples to be with me and she accepted. So I got a one way ticket to go to her graduation and then we got a U-Haul and loaded up all of her stuff and moved her here. Wow, what a great story. And just, she knew it was right. She said, "I'm going, I'm gonna do it." Yeah, you know what? It was tough at first because we were just talking on the phone, we weren't in physical contact.

So there was definitely an adjustment period there. Yeah, cause you don't know, does he leave the toilet seat up or down, there's like toothpaste on there. Exactly, yeah. And you don't know that about each other, yeah? Not at all. Wow. So did you move in together? Did you get a place together? How did you do that in the beginning? Well, at the time, my aunt, Ricky, she had a condo that she wasn't using during the summertime and now we're in 1994.

And so we didn't really live together at first. She stayed at my aunt Ricky's place. And then we had made wedding arrangements and everything. So there was some commitment there. But we ended up living together once my aunt Ricky was gonna come to take her condo back. So we did move in to a little place in Victoria Park off of Airport Road. Oh wow, that's very weird.

I love the traditionalness of that, that you didn't cohabitate right away. Right. That's the way it was always done. We'd visit each other and spend a weekend together. But for the most part, we weren't together. Yeah. Not together together. Did she start working when she came here? What did she do? What'd she got here? Actually, she got her degree in psychology and it was an undergrad. So she wanted to keep going to school and there was really no place to extend her education. And the internet didn't exist at that time. There was no Gulf Coast University. Right. Nothing online, nothing. So she kind of hit a brick wall and she ended up working for Montgomery Eye Center.

Oh yeah. And also Smith and De Shields after Montgomery.

And so she was pretty much doing the books at Smith and De Shields. And then my parents said that they wanted to retire and they wanted to know if I wanted to take the business over. So of course I accepted and Jennifer quit her job. And then she ended up doing the books at the store. And we thought my parents might hold our hands for a little bit once we signed on the dotted line. But three days after we took the store over, they went to Italy for a month. So. Wow, really? He was ready. Yeah, we were thrown into it. Which is actually how you learn the most. Yeah., it's when you have to figure things out.

Yeah, what was the conversation like between you and her when you made this decision to take it over when you were ready to do that? It was a really good conversation. Both of us really were excited about a new opportunity and to be able to do what we wanted to do. Because if you work for someone else, there's always little things that you'd like to tweak with the business. And when you work for someone, you can't really do that.

And my parents were pretty old school. We did have a computer, and they did the books on it. But they didn't really, they embraced technology, but they didn't really have the capacity. Like my dad, he was an artist. He barely knew how to turn a computer on. Yeah.,?

So it was nice for us to be able to expand the business because it was a huge opportunity. But my dad was always busy too. He was really resistant to slow down. I mean, from the moment he woke up in the morning until he went to bed, he was working on making violins or model airplanes. Oh wow., doing all kinds of different things. These are real craftsmen, everything is. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Making violins, did you say? Yeah. Really? Yeah, he had a kit that he bought

Like decades before he actually made it. But yeah, he made a, I think five or six violins. No kidding. Wow. Yeah. Well, what was that like then working with him? Because you can see things that, opportunities and things that an old school, like I work with my father the same way, they might not see it. How did that go with you and him while you were working together? What was that like? I think anybody has trouble working that close with somebody, but we just had a great time together. I learned a lot from him. Yeah.

And during the weekends, I'd go to my parents' house and work on model airplanes and watch football and so I was with them all the time until Jennifer moved here. But then when she moved here and we started the business ourselves, that things really took off after that. How long was that after she moved here before you guys took over?

She moved here in 94, we got married in 95 and then 98 is when we took business over. Oh, okay, just a couple years after that. Yeah. So your dad, you sign on the dotted line, dad takes off to Italy for a month. Yep.

(Laughing) And it wasn't like you could call him for a lot of stuff that wasn't easy to communicate that way. So you're really on your own right away. Yeah, and I was an employee of his and on basically the same page as the other people that worked at the stores, but now I'm the head guy. Yeah, yeah. So I'd never managed anything before, so that was sort of a learning experience too. How did they respond to that? How did they look at you? Because I know my kids have that, an issue sometimes with that, as I did with my dad, the way people looked at me because he hired people and then at one point I was responsible for leading them.

Yeah, our situation was very similar actually. Yeah, yeah. So it was always a little

Some people were like, oh, you're just a daddy boy, you're just, you're just gonna hand it to you. Yeah. So to earn that sort of respect was harder. Yeah. So you kind of had a bigger hurdle to deal with. Right. What was that like for you? Well, for a long time, Jennifer and I were the youngest employees of those jewelers. Yeah. And a lot of times when somebody takes a position over, like a sales person or whatever

They feel like, oh, this is gonna be a really fun job, but I'll still do my Philharmonic night every Tuesday or go play pickleball or whatever. And if you're gonna have the responsibility of a job, you can't really do that as much. Yeah. So it was kind of tough for us to find employees that would respect the situation and actually be there and do a good job when we were so much younger than they were. Right, right, yeah. And they didn't really take the job very seriously, but we have a great staff now. Yeah. So, but it takes a long time to find the right people. Sure.

That everybody melts together and they work together and almost can read each other's minds and that kind of thing. Well, how do you do that in your business? Because it's similar in hair that there's an artistry, that's a craft to it. So there's not, it's an exact science, although there may be some science to it with hair color anyway, but where there's artistry in it, how do you evaluate, how do you assess, how do you know what you're getting when you're bringing somebody on the team?

A lot of it has to do with experience. We made a lot of mistakes when we were the new owners of the store, but you learn from your mistakes and you can kind of read people, I think, too.

And when they are really interested in the position and they show up on time and they stay late and they're working really hard all the time. And I think after a while, you can sort of get a good feel for how someone's gonna be if they're working for you. But, and of course you do drug tests and you do a background check and make sure that they're past employers like them and they give them recommendations and that kind of thing. How does somebody learn the business? Do you have an apprenticeship program too? Or how do you get that? There are schools that you can go to. I know there's one in Paris, Texas.

I think there's one here in Florida

But it's a dying art and it's something that AI can't do. That's good news, actually. Yeah, actually. Yeah, but watchmaking is the same way. With all the electric watches there are now, there aren't a whole lot of people that work on mechanical watches. So it's similar, but finding good goldsmiths is very difficult. The one that we had now, it was a two year search that we went through to find him. Wow, and was he from the area then or not? He was living in Tampa at the time. And we had an add-in indeed. And I think he was either the third or fourth person that we had do a bench test, which means that we have them come to the store and we get to know them a little bit.

And then they do some simple repairs and that kind of thing. And we evaluate the quality of their workmanship and their speed. And if they don't do a good job, then we just part ways and try to find someone else. But I think it was either the third or fourth person. Aaron is his name. And he did phenomenal on his bench test and he's a Midwestern guy from Ohio. And he's got a really good work ethic. He's extremely talented. So we're really lucky to have him. So he moved here for the position. Yep, he did. And the bench test. So that's gotta be a lot of pressure for them too. Yeah, I would think so. Cause everything is unfamiliar.

They're sitting at someone else's work bench with someone else's soft frame and all the tools and everything are a little bit different. Yeah. So when did that happen? When did you bring him on board?

He started with us about the same time that Paola started working for us. And she is a full-time year round salesperson, also extremely good.

But they both started in, I believe February, March of 24.

So they're coming up on two years with us. Okay. Cause you've been through it all. I mean, going that number of years and being in businesses and especially down here with all the things that we've been hit with here, which is from the pandemic to the hurricanes. And there was, of course, Ian, but there was Irma and there was always the threat of hurricanes when we lose business the days before that. And the 07 crash and just everything that we've had to endure.

What kept you going? How did you get through all that? Cause there aren't many that can say they did. Yeah.

Lord above blessed us for sure.

But it's, I think a situation that we do a lot of things that no other jewelry store does.

Of course we do all the repairs and everything in-house. Nothing ever leaves the store, but primarily I think doing custom is our main thing. Okay.

And what that means is you might have jewelry that you don't wear anymore with nice stones in it, but the mountings may be worn out or the designs aren't really up to your specifications. So we'll take the gold and we'll take the stones and I'll design something or a few, two or three things. And we have a 3D CAD software program. It's called The Matrix.

And so I'll make a piece of jewelry on the computer now and I can email renderings to you and if that rendering isn't exactly what you had in mind, I can tweak it, make little adjustments and until you do like it. And we will use all of the stones that you have. If we can, if we can't, then we'll do like a second piece. But once the rendering is approved, then we have a 3D printer in our store also. And so I can actually print out the piece of jewelry and put all the stones in place and they can try it on and make sure it's exactly what they want. That's awesome. And I brought a sample here to show you what I'm talking about. This was a piece that we made for someone

And that was using all of their stones. Oh wow. But that's what comes out of the 3D. The 3D printer made this? Yes, in our store. So she could try it on and she didn't like the way that the little stones were oriented on the top. I could flip them around, add stones, take stones away, make it wider, narrower, whatever you want. But that was for a yellow sapphire. So that's what's here? Right. Okay.

Yeah, and all the rest were all natural diamonds. So that had to be really revolutionary, like a huge breakthrough in being able to, so somebody can visualize what you're creating. Yep, but to answer your question, I think it's that kind of technology that we have that most stores don't have.

And I think that having the ability to make new pieces like that, or make something for you, not using your pieces, but using our stones and creating something new is something that most places don't do. If they do have a 3D software program, a lot of times it isn't where you're starting from a completely blank canvas. A lot of times they'll almost have like a catalog within their software program, and their version of custom is, "Okay, we can take this setting and put it on this ring base."

And if you don't like that one, we'll choose another one out of the library of settings that they have. And then they can put it together, and then a lot of times they'll email that file to somebody that does have a 3D software, I mean a 3D printer. And then they print it and they cast the piece so it's then in metal, and then they get that back. So that's not really what we do. We start out with a blank canvas and we make it in the store, then we do the 3D print, and once the 3D print is approved, then I'll know what the ring is gonna weigh, and how much time I've got into it. So I'll know exactly what it's gonna cost. And at that point, I would ask for a 50% deposit.

But if for whatever reason it doesn't work out and you find something somewhere else that is perfect, you have no financial obligation until that point. Oh, so we could get the whole, see what could actually be the end result before investing anything in it, right? Yep, exactly. That's awesome. Yep. Wow. Yep, but we, I kind of put myself in their shoes. And I think going from like a concept to here's your finished piece of jewelry is sort of intimidating. And I wouldn't wanna be put in that situation. So I always try to make sure that the customer feels like they're getting what they want, not something that's forced on them.

And so I think that's something that has really helped our business, is being able to do anything a customer wants. And I don't really think there are any other stores that can say that they can do that in-house and in a timely manner too, because we can go.

I have made a ring on, well, I've talked to a customer in the morning, designed the ring that day, got approval for it that afternoon, cast it the next morning and had a finished ring in their hand within 24 hours. Wow, really, that kind of turned out. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. We can do that. I don't really recommend it. And a lot of times we don't have all of the things that we need, but in particular cases, we have been able to do that. So it moves pretty quickly. So you had to, or what you did was you've kind of married to the, you've embraced technology, but still the craftsmanship is still a big part of it, because it's not some stock way.

You're creating it, you just have a tool to create it and let them visualize it and see it before it actually happens. Exactly. Wow. And in-house. Yeah, but the program is extremely powerful. I bet you, I maybe use 10% of what this is able to make. Now, how did you find that, or what inspired you to go that route?

I think that when you start to hear from people, like before we had the 3D CAD software program, everything was done by hand. So to make a model like the one I showed you would just start out with a piece of wax and you would have to carve away everything that wasn't what you wanted. And it was harder to make adjustments and that kind of thing as the project progressed. But when you start hearing from your vendors, oh, you really still carve wax? I can't believe that you don't have a 3D CAD software program. Then you're like, oh, really? What's up with that? What do you need to do to get into that?

So then we researched the best ones and found out which one was the most compatible, because we didn't start out with the printer. We just used the software and then we would email someone that did have a printer, the file, and they would print it for us. And then they would cast it and we would get the ring back. But it takes a lot of time and you have to rely on different companies. And then a lot of times there are weather issues that slow the process down, that kind of thing. So once we got to the point where we were doing enough volume to justify buying a printer, of course we did that. But there's a lot of investment involved in that.

If you're gonna only use it every once in a while, you really can't justify the expense. But we just found that we were using it so much that we wanted to buy one and put it in the store so we could do things on a quicker basis. Can you make anything with a 3D printer? I've never used one. I mean, I've seen people that-- I think you can.

If you can think it up, there's a way to make it. And how long does that machine take to make a ring like that? Like a machine itself? The actual print for that ring would probably take about an hour and a half. Oh, that's all? Something like that. Okay. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So does that, does that continue to evolve too with AI? Has it gotten sharper, better? Yes, it has. Yeah, it has. Can you see that? There are different resins. That's what that green thing was, is a resin that's castable. So I can actually make that exact thing into a piece of jewelry.

But there are different types of castable resins. Some of them aren't as detailed, but the castings come out better.

But a lot of times there are things within the resin that make it so that the detail isn't really there. But as of yesterday, we just used a new resin that we just found out about that has a really high wax content, which is great because then the castings come out better. So I did my first casting with that new resin today. So to answer your question about how things evolve, yes, it's just a matter of talking to the right people and finding out what the best equipment is to figure out which you're gonna have in your store. How was the result of the one you just did? It was really, really good. You were happy. Very happy.

Yeah, a lot of times when things don't work out, you have to try something different to get a different result. Yeah. And so we were just trying all different kinds of things in the casting process to make it so that the castings would come out better. But with this new, it's called X-Wax resin. And with that, the results were just phenomenal. Really? Yeah. So it's finally like, (Sighs) I don't have to chase it anymore,? Oh, it's so nice. So I have something, I've got about 12 things that are printing as we speak. So hopefully when I get back to the store, we'll be able to take those prints off. So they're stacked up one after the other. You can batch do it like that.

Yeah. So you can print them out. It has like a print table that's about the size of the cards. Okay. And so you can just line them all up and do them all at once. And the time it takes to print it is determined by how tall it is. Not how much is on the print table because the taller it is, the longer it takes to print because it does it in layers. Okay. So whether you have one little thing on there

That's maybe an inch tall or 10 of them, it'll take exactly the same amount of time to print it. But if you have something that's really short, like a quarter inch, that might only take 15 minutes to print. Yeah. I'd love to see that. Yeah, well you should come in sometime. Yeah, I was thinking, we have to be there this, I think the meeting there is Friday at the Village. But I was wondering if maybe we could pop in and Zach will come in and we'll get some video of it too to put it in here. Sure. Because I'd love for people to see it too. Sounds really awesome to see what goes on behind the walls there. Yeah, yeah. That'd be cool.

We also do all of our work under microscopes and both Aaron and I have video cameras on our microscopes and we have TVs in the showroom. So as we're working on something, you can watch us and it would be magnified. Oh, very cool. So like if I tell you that you have a broken stone or something like that and you're looking at it in your hand and you're thinking, I don't see it. Well, I can put it on the microscope with the video camera on it and you can see exactly what I'm talking about. How cool is that? In the showroom. Wow. And that happened this morning.

Lady had about a four carat emerald cut diamond that she had been wearing and she asked me if I would clean it for her and I said, sure, I'll check it out for you too. And one of the prongs that secures the diamond in place was broken off and she's like, well, I don't see it. And I said, I'll show you on the microscope. So as soon as I put it under the microscope and she was looking at the TV in the showroom, she could see exactly what I was talking about. And the stone was really loose and everything. Yeah, yeah, it's a pretty important piece. Yeah. So she had lost one more prong. It was gone. Yeah. Yeah, wow. And that diamond was probably, I don't know

50, $60,000 easily. Wow, wow.

So we'll get to see that if we come by. Yeah, absolutely, I'd be happy to show it to you. That'd be so cool. Yeah, yeah. What are your thoughts about these manufactured lab-grown diamonds, what's that world? They are diamonds. It's not like a simulant that kind of looks the same. It is the same thing.

It's just that in the case of a natural diamond, it takes millions of years to grow, or to become a diamond. And then you have to go find it, dig it out. And then the expense in doing that is really, really high. And then finding one that's of gem quality

And then finding one that's big enough that you can actually cut a diamond out of. So they become very, very expensive. But if you're in a laboratory, and you're making these machines, they don't make one diamond at a time, they make like 200 at a time.

And instead of having a lot of inclusions, like internal characteristics of the stone, or have it be brown or really yellow or whatever, the ones that they're making now are very, very white.

They're very, very internally clean, and it only takes a few months to grow one. So they cost roughly 90, 90% less than natural diamonds. So if you have like a two-carat diamond that is 10,000 or $20,000, it's like a thousand or $2,000.

So there is a substantial difference in price. And also we find that because the material is so much less expensive, that the way that they're cut is better. Because with the diamond, every time you touch it to the wheel to put a facet on it, there's diamond dust going away. And that's dollars,? Whereas with the lab-grown diamonds, the material is so much less expensive, they don't really care as much about how the diamond weighs or what it weighs. They care more about the quality of the cut of the diamond. So they tend to be very internally clean, very white in color, and very well cut for one-tenth the price. So you like working with them?

I have to admit, I mean, they're gorgeous. They're really, really nice. And I don't stock anything in lab-grown. Everything in the store is natural from the ground.

So if you look around and wonder what's natural and what isn't natural, it's all natural in my store. Okay. But I can get lab-grown diamonds.

And what's nice is that normally what I'll do is I'll get in two or three for you to choose from. And then you would pick one and then we would make a ring or a bracelet or whatever out of it for you, using the 3D CAD software program and the 3D printer. Is it easy for you to see when you have the two next to each other? You can tell that one's from the earth and one's from a lab. Nope. Really? It's the same thing. Yeah. And it used to be that they weren't certified. So I'd have to kind of take your judgment as to the quality of the stone. But now even the Gemological Institute of America is certifying them.

So, and the certificate number is normally laser inscribed right on the diamond. So you can pair the diamond with the certificate and know that those two match.

Because I've seen people come in with a diamond and a certificate and that certificate is not for that diamond. So with the laser inscription on the diamond, you know that there's no doubt about the fact that stone is what that piece of paper says it is. And I can show you too, I can put it on the microscope and show you the number on the TV using our microscope with a video camera on it. So, exactly that stone is the one that's on paper. Yeah, fascinating that you could do that on a little. I know. I'll show you when you come into the store. It's amazing there. It's very legible, but it's small. What has that done to the diamond industry?

It has had to have cut into it by a pretty big margin. We've got customers that are very wealthy just like you. And they didn't have-- I'm not the wealthy one. They're customers.

Just like you have.

But, and that's kind of the fun part too is that they've got these big diamonds that are natural that they've had for generations.

And they sort of pepper in the lab groans. So people don't even consider the fact that this person might not have a natural diamond, but they paid, well, I just sold a seven and three quarter carat emerald cut for $14,000. Oh my gosh.

And it's like really, really gorgeous. Super nice. But a seven and almost eight carat natural diamond would be hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. But she's got a lot of other pieces that are really big. So you wouldn't even question the fact that it's natural. Whereas we have these millennials coming in, this 20 somethings and they've got $10,000 in their pocket and they're walking out with a five carat diamond on their hand. Wow, incredible. Yeah. Wow. And if somebody that young is wearing something that's that big, you kind of know.

But they don't really care because it's beautiful, it's big and it's more environmentally friendly they feel. And it was grown in a laboratory. It's everything that they wanted to. And they can still put a deposit down on a house or buy a car with the money that they saved.,? Yeah. So it works out really well for everyone. And because we make the lab grown diamond sale, we also make the mounting for it too. So it works out well for us because if you want a lab grown diamond and I don't offer it to you're gonna go somewhere else. And more than likely whoever you buy it from, you're also gonna have them do the setting

The ring or whatever it is. So I would be missing out on not only the lab grown diamond sale but also the ring or whatever that is being made for it. So to resist selling lab grown diamonds, I think would possibly be a mistake.,? Yeah. Because if you want a lab grown diamond and I don't offer it, then you're gonna go someplace that does. Sure. So.

And it's not like the old days with the cubics or connoisseurs, that stuff is not, this is the real deal. It's the real deal. Yeah. And they're gorgeous. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I also hear your reputation is that no job is too small in anything and I think there are even comments online about how people comment that you treated their small little repairs if it was a million dollar commission but you treated them the same as all the way through. No job too small. Yeah, absolutely. And that's always been your thing. Yeah, yeah. What's behind that?

I think my parents, they started the business that way and to me that's just the way it's done., if someone is really young or whatever and they have a little repair that they wanna have done, they'll remember that and then they'll come back and then they'll tell their friends and then they get older and they need an engagement ring and we've been doing business forever. So then, things tend to snowball but even if you don't come back and we just do that repair for you, whatever it is, then we're happy., we made someone happy and I would say that the business in general is just a happy business,? Yeah, yeah.

We took a piece of old jewelry that they had that they didn't wear and we made it into something else or they get married and then there's an engagement ring and a wedding band and then there's anniversaries and there's

Bump gifts and,. Yeah, baby bump. Yeah, the baby bump gift. Yeah, yeah., and then they tell friends-- And they call the push something, push present. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yep, but then there's

First communions and anniversaries and, so everything is really attached to a fun experience. Yeah, it's a happy time. Christmas, birthdays, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So. So what

What have you seen over time, the shift in, because you're dealing with second and third generation families that have been coming there too. Yeah. What have you seen in the

The shift in the way business is for you and even since post COVID, what do you see? Yeah, a lot of times when people started coming to us, they were like in their 40s, 50s and they were still buying a lot of jewelry and they were going to fancy occasions that they could wear this jewelry at and then they end up, slowing down a little bit about buying things and then the things that we sold them years ago need to get polished or

Maintained, so we ended up doing that. But then they end up wanting appraisals so that they can give their jewelry to their kids and they wanna make sure it's all even and then they aren't buying jewelry anymore.

(Laughing) It's sort of the evolution,? So, but then their kids come to us and we just continue the process.

I had a lady come in last week and she said that she needed to find something for her 30 year wedding anniversary and I was like, okay, sure, she said, I got my engagement ring here from you 30 years ago. I was like, wow, that's amazing. That's awesome, that is so awesome. Yeah. Wow. Yep, so we've been there for a long time. We've seen a lot of changes. Yeah, right? Yeah. I still see Dara from Artichoke and Company. See them and they have their place over there. But it was the German couple that had that back in the day. Was it Alexander? Yes. Yeah, and his wife, yeah, he was in the store. I would say just a couple months ago. Really? Yeah. Still around? Yeah.

He had a cane and everything. No kidding. And he's like, I don't know if you remember me. And I was like, Alexander, hello, how are you? He couldn't believe that I remembered, but I was like early or late 20s, I'd say, when I started working there. Was his wife there too? Yeah, both of them. Yeah. Yep. I remember going there. That was many years ago. Yeah, yeah, they were their originals. And then, well then Dara took it over. Yeah. And they were there for a little while. Yeah. And I remember when, well, did you, on Ian, did you have any water come into your place? Did you get anything from that? No, I mean, it was incredible. Yeah, right, nothing, right?

Yeah, we didn't have anything. Really lucky there. Yeah. The water came up probably about in the parking lot, maybe two feet or so, I would say. Yeah. And Creighton, that is higher elevation than we are, was flooded. I mean, it was almost all the way to 41. Yeah, that was crazy. Well, actually we saw a car that was parked by a Montgomery Eye Center, and you could see a water line about halfway up the door. Wow. And it said, there was a note in it saying that somebody had been called and the car is gonna be picked up. But because of that water line, you could see how high the water was, and we're dry. Yeah, wasn't that something? I couldn't believe it.

I mean, when we were going down 41, right where Fresh Market is, there's that big parking lot. Oh, yeah. And that was flooded. And we were thinking, oh my gosh, we're not gonna have anything left. And the police were there, and we told them that we had a jewelry store at Phoenician Village, because they weren't just letting anybody through. Right, yeah. So we had no idea what to expect, and when we got to the parking lot, and it was just, had dirt on it, and the trees were down, but we were dry. I have no idea how. Yeah, it was a small miracle for sure. Yeah, it really was.

Yeah, it's even down here at Bayfront, the water that came in over here, it never made it up, but there were fish in the dry area there. Oh my gosh. There was so much water. Wow, wow. Yeah, we just, at all three, we were lucky. And the village, the whole center, I mean, thank, it's a miracle that didn't, because that area got hit so bad. Oh, it did. There's a little marina by T. Michaels, and there was a boat right in front of his restaurant. Yeah, yeah. I couldn't believe it. There were cars in the water where the boats were, and the boats were where the cars were. I know, and we're dry. Yeah, that was incredible. It just didn't make any sense at all.

I remember going down Gulf Shore, and a little further south of the village, there was just this accumulation of cars that had all floated down in this one area there. It was just incredible, and I just picked them up, and then here we were with not a drop. It was unreal. Just incredible. Yeah, it was a real blessing, because we've had so many over the years that never really did anything.

I never thought, they wouldn't always tell us the water, water, water. I'm like, it's never gonna happen. There's no way. I was talking about it. All the ones we had, Wilma and Charlie, the ones that never came, and then even Irma, which was still, it had an impact on the area. Yeah, it sure did. Which the museum did, but it was one that woke me up anyway, I remember. That's for sure. We didn't know. Who knew the couple days after what's gonna happen? It was so much unknown. Yeah, absolutely, a lot of question marks, but we were both just so blessed to not have any problems at all. Especially right there, so close to the water. I know. I think would be the first thing.

Yep. Lucky about that. Yep.

And then COVID happened. That too was another one that was... Yep, but, it was funny, because 2021 was the best year we ever had. Right after COVID, there were so many people, I couldn't believe it, but they would say, "I've been locked up in my house for 14 months. This is the first place I came." Yeah, it's not awesome, that's great. Wow, really, my little story is the first place you went. Yeah, that's so great, yeah. Yeah, but we had a great year. Yeah, there was this sort of pent-up surge that people were ready to get out and go do it, but at the beginning of that time, we just didn't know how long it was gonna be, unknown to that period.

It was tough to stomach, like, "What are we gonna do?" But you've ridden all the waves through the whole thing, so that's, hats off to you, because I know that the, especially the fact that dad got up and went on a vacation for a month after. And the two of you were left, there you go. Yeah, here you go. And the rent's not cheap there, it never was cheap. No, it's very expensive. You always got a lot over your head, always got a lot of pressure on. Well, there was a lot of nervous years, there was, like you said, just total unknowns. And, we have people that help us out with financial planning and that kind of thing.

And we've had people tell us that this is an unsustainable business model, because we don't really do any advertising, and that's unheard of. But we have a lot of customers that tell people about us in a lot of word of mouth, the location, we sort of feel is almost like advertising expense, because it is expensive to be there, and we have a pretty good location. So rather than try to chase people with advertising, we're just right there, right next to you.

So it works out pretty well. And you get the best type of customer, because they're coming from somebody else who sends them to you too. Yeah, absolutely. That's a warm referral. I wonder, you talk about businesses are built only on social now, there's so many that are built only on media or advertising. Like I see the watch guys, and I don't know

What that world is like, I just know it's going up and it's down, it's all over the place, it's a great market watch business. But as some of those kids that work in that place, I'll see them pull up in these Ferraris or whatever, like our watch business is doing okay for a while, what's going on over there? What is that world like? Do you have any idea what goes on in the watch business? Well, it really works out well for us, because we don't sell watches, we don't work on watches, none of that, but that's all that they do.

And it's tough for guys to access our eyes, because wearing a ring or something with a big diamond on it isn't necessarily what guys normally do, like we don't carry any men's jewelry.

And so the way a guy can accessorize is with the watch. And so the guy is in the watch store, his wife is in our store. Oh, that's great, complement each other really well. Oh, that's awesome. But yeah, that world is way different than ours.

They aren't really designing anything, they don't really work on watches, whereas that's what we do is we work on jewelry, we design it, but they also have things over there that are made, for example, from the steel that was on the Titanic. Really?, things like that, one of three watches in the world. Yeah, you can go see there. Yeah, or buy it. Or sell it. Yeah. I know, that's it., I think, oh my gosh, $200,000 for a watch, but then they think, wow, $200,000 for a piece of jewelry. All it does is just sit there, it doesn't really do anything.

A friend of mine, we had this little Christmas gathering from a group of us from our gym, and he checked the time on his watch, and it was a tag watch that was digital.

The face, I thought it was, I didn't know that it was digital, like I didn't see it that had a screen, but it had the whole tag look to it. It was just, I thought, it looked really good. It looked like a real, the real tag watch. It was made by tag, but now they just have that digital plate face on it. Amazing. Something so different. Some of those watches over there, I don't even know how to tell time. Yeah. They don't have numbers on them, they don't have any digits or anything. It's just like, this little block here, if it is in this location and this one is in this location, then that means that it's this time.,? Oh yeah, you gotta add them all up or something.

Yeah, and I even saw one watch over there that was like that and I couldn't figure out what time it was, but if you took it off and looked at it from the part of the watch that's actually touching your skin, then it has a real dial with hands and everything. What's the point of that? So you can figure out. Go upside down and figure it out, okay? I know, crazy. There was the recent memes were out and they were showing these kids, whatever the current generation is, Z or Y, whatever that is, and they were looking at a real clock on a wall and they were like, they couldn't tell what time it was because they had to shorthand it along.

That's not far from the truth,? We had a client write a really nice thank you card and she brought it back later in the day. She had a great experience and she was real happy about it. She brought it back later in the day and I handed it to one of the girls to read it and she couldn't read it because it was incursive. Yeah, amazing. They don't teach cursive anymore. They haven't for years, I guess. But yeah, my son's signature, he's 23. His signature is just writing it out in block. Yeah, oh, writing in signatures, yeah, that's right. Yeah, no more signatures. Pretty funny.

Is he gonna follow and what's the-- No, he is really into graphic arts, so he'll do something on the computer. He's got the arts side of him. He does, yeah. He has this YouTube channel, it's Scooter.

The Dog, it's like a yellow Boston Terrier.

And so he's got a whole, I mean, he has seasons of this cartoon in his mind and he does these little YouTube cartoons. And he creates from an artist's perspective. Yeah, really, yeah. Oh, well, I gotta check that out. What's the name of the channel? It's The Adventures of Scooter the Dog. All right. Yep. Adventures of Scooter the Dog, okay. So he was born and raised here in Naples. Yeah, he was born right at the airport in Immokalee. And my daughter, she's 26.

She's also going to FGCU and she's really into ceramics. So she's going to get her degree in that and probably to teach, I'm assuming. But it's her passion since we have pieces that she has made from five years old in our house. Really? Yeah.

And she's stayed with her, the passion for that has just been there, yeah. So all of our kids are involved in art somehow. Both of our kids, yeah.

Now, was your mom into art too or was your mom's role into that? She was a, she did the books for the store and she also was a realtor and she played the violin and she was-- Well, that's where the violin came in. So she played the violin that he made. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, and both my parents sang in the choir

The First Baptist Church. Okay. And so my mom wasn't really into art that much. She could take it or leave it. Yeah.,. She supported the artist and-- Yeah, she did.

All of them, the family. Yep, yep. Are your parents alive? No, unfortunately they're both deceased. Yeah, so what was your mom's name? Lois. Lois. Yep. How would she describe you, if somebody walked into the store and she was talking about you in the store, how would she describe her son, her youngest son?

Yeah, I think my parents would be really proud of where Jennifer and I have taken the business.

When they sold it to us, there were no guarantees at all on their end that we were actually gonna pay it off. I think a lot of times when a business goes from one generation to the next, sometimes they just-- One of the highest failure rates. Yeah, yeah. So they didn't really know what to expect, but it took us about, I think

Almost 12 years to pay it off. And then right when we paid it off, what did we do? We moved one door down-- Took on a little more debt. And started all over again.

(Laughing) You just, when you had that relief, no more-- I know, exactly. We were going back at it again. But we just saw such an opportunity. Yeah.,? Yeah, it was a brilliant move. Yeah, it has worked out really well. Not only is the location better, but it's also a much bigger space. So we have a bigger showroom, bigger workshop, and a better location, so. Yeah, it's awesome. I don't know where you're at, I mean, such a great spot. But you really, yeah, it's quite a testament to you, because second generation businesses especially, well, businesses in general have such a high failure rate, but then especially a second generation business.

And you never missed a payment to your dad. No. Yeah, that's-- No. That's saying something. Sometimes they'd let us slide during the summer, because they know how tough it is. Yeah. And so, yeah, we did eventually pay them off. It took a long time, but yeah, we did it. I know what that's like, yeah. Yeah, a lot of rough years for us too. Yeah. I mean, that's the tough part is you don't really know what, it's like a realtor. You could have a dry spell, and the bills are still coming in like clockwork, and there's nothing coming in. So it makes it really scary at times. And there's no leniency on that rent. Nope. That's not for a minute. Nope. 10 days after Ian. Yep.

Where's my check? That's right. Oh, and by the way, we have air conditioning maintenance that you have to pay for. Oh, by the way, where's your five grand? Yeah, right, right. That just happened a couple months ago. Oh man, the stands for the AC. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh, like random. Or, oh, we messed up on the cam charges, so we need $6,000. Right. Well wait, that time's already gone. Yeah, you gotta pay it. That's right. But the customers that came in during that time, I would have had to raise the prices that I'd known, but oh well, that's your problem. Not for us to deal with. We messed up on cam again.

(Laughing) I'm gonna make you go on a rant on that, because it drives me crazy that I get these year later bills that oh yeah, here you owe this amount of money that they screwed up on the estimates. But because they messed up on the estimates, now the charges for the next year are gonna be higher, because now that they know what it's gonna cost. Yeah, right. So, yeah. And sometimes it's okay if, okay, I've got a plan for it, at least. Right. I can't stand when we get those things in the mail, and then they're like, we want it now.

(Laughing)

Yep. But it's a great location, and the thought of moving, and starting all over from a different location. Of course, they got us, yeah. Yep, yep, yep. I mean, there is nothing else on that, in all of Naples.

Most cities in the world, really. To be that close to the beach, and to be just

You know, that whole area is all for Venetian Village. Yeah, yep. There are a few, I think there's Tommy Bahama, and there's a few other

You know, national chains that are in Venetian Village, but for the most part, it's like you and me, we have one store, you've got, how many stores now, three or four? Three, I guess, yeah. Three, so, and I think that's what part of the allure to the village is, is the fact that you can't go to this store wherever else you are. Yeah, that's right, yeah. And that's something that attracts me when I go on vacation or whatever. I don't wanna eat at Olive Garden. Right, yeah. I'm not one of those here. Yeah. So I try to go to a mom and pop place. Yeah.

Some place that has different food or different clothes or whatever from what I have here, and I think that's something that a lot of people do. Yeah, my wife is the same. She loves the boutiques, she loves the small local shops that she finds unique pieces in. Right. And she likes the big stores too, but she also likes the small

We went up to the Panhandle for the first time we were trying to get away after the holiday, and that week's always a little weird after Christmas,. Yeah. So we went to Rosemary Beach, Seagrove, Seagrip. It's a long drive for her, beautiful area. Yeah. But they have some of those small little boutique area shops that are really fun for her to visit. Yeah. Yeah, those are not everywhere because the chains are everywhere now. I know, yeah. Just everywhere. Yeah, we like going to Sarasota and there's the Saint Armans. Oh, Saint Armans circles. Yeah, that's really nice. Yeah, we were close to there recently too, but we didn't make it up there.

We were in Englewood Beach, Minnesota Key, which I didn't even know existed for the first time. We were gonna take a ride up to Saint Armans. Yeah. Her family used to go to that area, but that's another area that's similar to-- Yeah, it is, it's nice. We've stayed at the Lido Beach Resort a couple times. Okay. And that's really nice. You like that? Yeah, there's a golf cart that you, I think it goes continuously back and forth from Saint Armans Square to the hotel. Oh, nice. Yeah, you can just get in and get a nice bite to eat or whatever, and then just go back to your hotel. Yeah, I'll have to check that out because we were always looking for little getaways.

I don't like going on the other coast as much because it's crazy over there. Yeah, it is, it's a different world. Yeah, every now and then it's fun, but later in life I'm in it with the slower. We were at Minnesota Key, which they got hit really hard. That area was pretty messed up, I think, with the car again, but they didn't go in and rebuild it the way that is happening here where they're just tearing stuff down and just rebuilding these monsters. And so it's still kind of got that old Naples character to it felt like to me, that little area. There's not a lot going on there, but it was a nice little retreat. In fact, what was his name?

There's a song that, I think it's called Venus, an old 50s song, Venus, My Love or something. It was some song my dad grew up with and loved. The singer of that song, I don't wanna say Bobby Darin, but I could be wrong, lives there. He's still alive, he's in the 90s. Or something like that. And because I was just reminded of my dad when we were up there, because I remember when we moved to Naples

It reminded me a lot of what Naples was like many years ago, how it was just, it was single story Ruttenberg homes and there were no mansions here. And in Vanderbilt Beach, we lived in Vanderbilt, which at the time was considered almost Fort Myers, because if you were in Naples, it was so funny to think north of Pine Ridge Road was way out of there. There was no Pelican Bay.

And Vanderbilt was just like this off the beaten ground. How long have you been here? We moved here in 77. Wow. So most of my life, I was going into eighth grade. I went to Pine Ridge Middle School when we got here. Baron Collier had just opened up. Wow. And you came right after college, or a couple years after college. Yeah, yeah, 92. You've seen it all. Yeah. You've seen. A lot. I know and every couple years you go, wow, I saw a lot, then there's still more coming. Oh man, it just never slows down. No, it does not. Yeah, it's exponential, it just keeps going faster and faster as you get older. We will drive down through Aquilane and Port Royal every now and then.

And if you don't go there for a year and then go back a year, it's like, wow, look at these homes. I know. It's just incredible what's going on. Yeah. Right under our, and everybody always says, oh, I wish I would have bought that piece of property. I wish I would have bought that land. Yeah, when I moved here and they were building the high rises that are on Gulf Shore, when I first moved here, as I said before, there was no south side of Venetia Village. And we used to park right where the high rises are now. Oh, right, there was nothing there, right? Right, I could sit on my work bench and I could see the waves coming in on the Gulf. There was nothing, it looked great.

I forgot about that. Yeah, we used to park, now we park at the church. We used to have to park on the property that was on the other side of Gulf Shore.

Wow, imagine that. They'd tell us to park on the beach. Oh my gosh, on the beach, that's incredible. I know. That's right, that's right, I forgot about that. Wow. Yep, it seems like a lifetime ago, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, that area right there, yeah. Because I only think of it now as the concrete, what it is now, that's wild to me. Yeah, there's nothing there. So yeah, we've seen some change. Yeah. For sure.

I haven't seen him there, but Sebastian Maniscalco, have you ever heard of him? Yeah, yes, I've seen him many, many times. We saw him in Tampa in 2012. Oh really? Yeah, just like off the hook, Comedy Club. It was kinda like that. And we had a little table, he was right there, we paid 20 bucks for the tickets. Really? But since then, he has exploded. Oh, big time, yeah. But his daughter is

His wife is the daughter of the Ludgards. Yeah, right, right, so they come. Simone's daughter. Yeah, right, yeah, yeah. Yep, so they stay right at their house. He's been in our store a couple times. Has he really? Yeah.

He was here one time, and when I had first discovered him, and hearing him talk about his Italian upbringing and his father, because his dad reminds me so much of my father, just a hard-nosed Italian. Yeah. He just got the same wish. In the hair business too. And then he's a stylist, I know. His dad is still cutting hair.

He is, I love the stories, because he really, but one of the things I'm so grateful to him for is he talks about his heritage and the way his dad was, and he had me have an appreciation and love for him, because for many years, my dad being a hard-ass like he was, like he talks about his dad, it's like nothing's ever good enough, you're always, you're always in trouble.

(Laughing) It just, it was my life, it was like, wow, but he had me have an appreciation for who my dad was for me. It really had me appreciate him, because he was an old-school Italian, and that's just how they are. And, I should honor that. And it really had me love and appreciate my dad in heaven, like a way I never did hearing him talk about his dad all the time. I remember hearing that he, I think it was before they got married, or maybe they had just gotten married, and they were coming here, and I gave a package to Simone to give to him to say thank you. He gave me a relationship with my dad, I gave him a couple bottles of wine, or something like that.

He gave me a relationship with my dad, and I was just believing it from heaven down that I have now that I didn't appreciate until you share it the way you share it, because he really puts it in context like the, and he still does it, and he makes me laugh at it. He has me appreciate it so much. He's awesome, I just love him, so happy for him that he's gotten so, he's a big deal. But I didn't realize that you saw him pre-everything. That was really when he was, nobody, he was just coming up. And after the show, he was out in the parking lot, shaking hands, we've got pictures with him. Is that right? Oh, how cool is that? Yeah. Wow.

And his friend, he does a podcast with a guy named Pete, Pete Sebastian. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we've seen him before a couple times. Oh, is that right down here? Yeah, yeah. Actually, he was at Off the Hook a few years ago. No kidding, really? Yeah. Did he come, so we saw him last year when he came to Hertz, right there last year. And I don't know if Pete, Pete might've been a warm up, a part of that too. He had a couple of years before him. Probably so. Yeah, he was at the Barbara B. Mann a couple times too. Oh, I saw him there too. Yeah, I saw him at Barbara B. Mann. Yeah, we did too. And now he's got a, now he fills up the Hertz arena. Yeah.

Yeah, just last weekend, on Saturday night of last week

We saw Russell Peters also at Off the Hook. And he did a set at Sebastian's wedding. Really? Yeah. Okay, wow. And he's a really funny comedian too. And yeah, we got some good ones that come right there. I mean, it's right in our own backyard. It's kind of cool that we get those. Jim Brewer lives in Naples. I saw it, I just read that. That's right, yeah. Yeah. And so he'll go there a lot then too. Does Jim Brewer go there? Yeah, he's been there several times. We've seen him at Off the Hook. Anybody good coming up that you would recommend?

Not that I can think of. Nobody stands out.

But they've always have good comedians there. And we get the free tickets.

They send out a text saying that this comedian is gonna be here and you can come for free. Oh yeah, you get, what are you on some special list or something? Yeah, you can just go to offthehook.com I think and subscribe. And then you'll get texts when they have a comedian coming up for free tickets. And of course it's not free. It'll end up costing a hundred bucks before you get out. Yeah, right, right, yeah. But it's worth it, the food there is really good. Is it? Yeah, I don't know that I ate the last time. I saw, I won't remember his name now, but I saw a comedian who was on the Goldbergs, the TV, the 80s show, the Goldbergs. Oh yeah, huh?

The comedian, Brian Cullen, I think is on there. Yeah, he was on, he's the teacher, the gym teacher on that show. Okay. We saw him there. That's really good. Cool. But we didn't have dinner, but I gotta do that. It'll be something else to do. Yep, we saw James Murray from Impractical Jokers there too. Oh really, one of the guys who does the, yeah, they talk to the other guy and make him do his, yeah, create something crazy. Which guy was that? Which guy is he? It was Murr, what's his name? James Murray. What's he look like? He is the one that's really clean cut.

The most normal looking one? Yeah, they're Sal and Q and Joe. Joe, I guess is no longer with them. And then Murr, but Murr was a good time. He was pretty much just taking questions from people. Oh yeah? And that kind of thing. Yeah, he didn't really have a set,? Yeah. But it was really fun to watch and we had a good picture with him too. Yeah, I like how they do the, I don't know, they speak to the audience. They get to know Naples. They talk about Naples for what it is. Yeah. I think that was great. He did that too.

Sebastian did that too. He always does that because he's come here with his family. I mean, the movie was about his in-laws. The movie was about the Leckerts. Right, yeah. And it's funny knowing them. Yeah., when he's talking about his little niece and nephew doing this and that, we're like, oh yeah. Heather Detweiler is their daughter. It's Lana's sister. She lives here. And so when he's talking about his niece and nephew, we know exactly who he's talking about. Yeah. And that's kind of funny. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, he doesn't hold anything back with them. I love that. No, that's for sure.

Well, what was it in your life that for you, that you knew that it wasn't just something you do that was it was like your calling to be in this business?

I think sometimes if you want to do something and the door start closing and you have to force the issue, whether it's a new job or moving to a new place or whatever

That door never even was cracked closed. It was always just opportunity. There's nothing that really held me back., and I think if things started to feel forced, then it would feel like it wasn't right

That I should maybe do something else. But we've prayed before saying, Lord, if there's something else you want us to do, we'll follow whatever you want us to do. And all of a sudden we make a big sale or something and we are able to just keep going and trucking along. But there have been many, many challenges, but we've overcome them and gotten stronger because of it. So it's worked out well. And what advice would you give to people who work with their spouse?

It's funny, Jennifer and I work under the same roof

And we eat lunch together, but she's always in the office and I'm always in the showroom or I'm at the workbench, more than likely though I'm on the computer using the Matrix software program, making something for someone. So although we quote unquote work together, we don't really interact a lot. She might need the price of something or somebody calls about a repair or something like that. But for the most part, we don't really work together. But I think that if we had to give advice to somebody that was considering working with their spouse

I would just say to be patient and to try to see things from their point of view and to try to just work it out. Because there have been a lot of times that we were stressed about something, but we always had to remember that we're both on the same team. We aren't really working against each other. We're always working towards the same goals. So it's not that I'm against her at any time. We're always trying to get to the next thing, whatever it is. So I think knowing that you are with your spouse and having them work with you to better a situation is always something that you can rely on.

And if it does start to feel forced, then just take a step back and relax and try to see things from their perspective. Who's the ultimate decision maker on big decisions?

I'm the ultimate decision maker.

But I would say with every really big decision, we do it together.

For example, buying the 3D printer or we have a really, really expensive induction casting machine. And when you're trying to think about buying something that's many, many tens of thousands of dollars, you have to try to keep in mind that are we gonna get our return on investment back? Or is this just a money pit that isn't really gonna be used very much? And we've always benefited from whatever technology that we've decided to get. And it's something that other stores don't have. So it just makes us stronger.

Have you always been a techie?

Yeah, I have.

I like state of the art things. I mean, really nice equipment is awesome. I mean, you probably have things in your stores that are really, really nice because you can do things with them on a more timely basis and get a better end product.

You mentioned that your dad was doing the books on a computer, but barely just a little bit of it. Because back in those days, I remember trying to get my parents to put a computer in

Around those years and they were using, and I remember them getting their first computer, which was just to do payroll and some simple things like that, but it wasn't a transition. But to always, and then when the first computerized deployment book came out, that was such a big deal, but it was so scary to them to want to do that. But technology wise, how about, are you using AI at all for anything for the business? There are ways that you can use AI for jewelry design.

Hopefully design. Yeah, I kind of feel like it's cheating a little bit. I don't like to use other people's designs.

I'll use cues from their designs to incorporate them in something that I might be making, but to actually take an image from AI and create that. I've never done that, but I think that a lot of people have. But in our business, I don't really think AI applies as much just because everything is done by hand. And I can't be replaced by AI. Yeah, right. So, I mean, from the design aspect I could. But to then take that and then create it to a new level. To a real piece of jewelry, AI can't do that. So I've got pretty decent job security. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like haircuts too. Yeah.

Do you use it for anything else in your life or any other area of the business that you use AI? Not really.

But like you with the appointment book, we have an automated texting situation where when somebody comes in and they want to have a piece of jewelry made or repaired or whatever, we'll get their cell phone number. And then everything is done through podium it's called.

And it's really nice because before, let's say a piece of jewelry was finished, we'd call the place, the people. And then it's like, who is this? It's John from Phelps Jewelers. I don't know of any place called Phelps Jewelers. Well, we have your wife's repair done. She there,?

(Laughing) So then you go over all over again, who is this? Oh yeah, I forgot about that. So now with this texting software

As soon as the piece is done, they get a text and then there's something concrete in writing saying that we did contact them or if we have a wrong number, at least we tried, something like that. But that's something that's really changed our business for the better. Yeah. But as far as AI goes

It doesn't really affect us that much. I'm sure that there are businesses that are almost completely transitioning to AI, but our store is not one of them. Yeah, I'm seeing

I guess back-of-the-house stuff is more where we've been using it for internal

Accounting and things like that. It's kind of helpful with that in summer cards. But not so much in creativity and haircutting. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yours is an art form also, cutting hair. Yeah, yeah.

The world that the robots that Elon is talking about won't be able, well maybe, who knows, maybe the robots will be able to cut hair. Yeah, who knows? Right now they can. That's good.

(Laughing) If you could go back to your 10-year-old self, is there anything you would say to yourself? Oh my gosh.

I'm sure that I've made a lot of mistakes.

But to my 10-year-old self, wow.

I would probably say to take education a little bit more seriously. I wasn't the best student. I had a lot of fun, but if I had to do it over again, I would definitely take school a lot more seriously and get better grades.

But-- Turned out pretty good. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. I may not have met my wife if I did have better grades and kept going to school. So she used to go to our store, by the way. And I didn't know that she even existed. I always just sort of missed her at the store in Texas when we lived there. In Texas? Oh really? Yeah.

We crossed paths many times.

And it finally ended up, when you were getting ready to move, that-- Yep. That's awesome. What a great story, I love that. Yep.

So there's a lot of trust involved in your business. You get things that are handed to you from

Generations in their family, their heirloom, or whatever it was. Is there a story without names that really stayed with you that you remembered something you did for somebody?

You know, it's funny because

We have a lot of very wealthy customers that have a lot of very expensive jewelry.

And they'll just hand it to us and say, "I'm gonna go get my hair cut. I'll be back to pick it up so it's cleaning while they're gone." They don't care at all. They trust us. But then you get these people that come in and they have a quarter care diamond that they don't wanna see it go out of their sight. And it seems like the less expensive it is, the more they care about the security of it. Yeah, yeah. But we've seen diamonds in excess of 20 carats in the store. Wow., we've seen, there was a girl that came into the store, she had a pink diamond, a natural pink diamond that was one carat and it was worth a couple hundred thousand. Wow. And so we see everything.

But as far as the specific story goes

We've made so many different types of jewelry.

In fact, this is kind of gross, we were just talking about this last night. A guy came into the store and he had this sort of a marble looking thing, it was sort of gray or brown looking. And he said that he wanted me to make a piece of jewelry out of it for his mom for Mother's Day.

And so I was looking at it and it was kind of squishy. And I was like, "What is this?" And he said it was a gall stone that he passed. Oh my gosh.

(Laughing) And I was like, "No, thank you, this is not something "I'm making a piece of jewelry out of."

And we've made jewelry out of fish scales.

I mean, just about everything you can imagine. Being in the business as long as we have, there's so many different things that we've done. Almost to the point where you can't surprise us anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, especially with

Things are handed down to different generations. They look at their mother's jewelry and say, "Oh, I would never wear that." That was good for the 80s or the 90s or whatever, but what am I gonna do with it now? And now to keep a piece of their mom or dad, they can have it made into something that's with the times or functional or something that they're gonna use and it's a piece of their-- Yeah, that's our specialty, exactly that.

Right now, just as of a few days ago, gold went over $4,600 per ounce. So the piece of jewelry that they bought in the 90s for say, $1,000, I can give them double for that. Wow. Now.

Wow. And so-- But what is that I know? Yeah, $4,600 per ounce, yep. So a lot of people are having things repurposed now.

And it's kinda neat too because the diamond that they're holding is the same diamond that was on their great-grandmother's hand when she got married. Your eyes are looking at the exact same thing that she had. And that's kinda cool. But if it's in a ring that you don't really like and you have a lot of gold that you aren't wearing, broken chains, single earrings, that kinda thing, a lot of times what they have will pay for a new piece of jewelry and it doesn't cost them anything.

So that works out really well. It's a base for itself because of what you're using for that. Yeah, and now they have a brand new piece of jewelry that's a current style that they designed

And so it's a win-win. So what about the, when you talk about the different types of gold, 14 karat, 10 karat, there was that big blow up on the internet recently, that guy yelling in the New York about the selling a gold piece that wasn't 14 karat, it was 10 karat. 10 karat's worse, right, it's not as nice. Yeah, there's 24 karats, that's fine gold, it's 24 karat. So 10 karat isn't even half gold. It's more alloy than it is gold. If something was 12 karat gold, then it would be half alloy and half gold. That's how that works. Yeah, and like 18 karat is three quarters gold in one quarter alloy.

Okay, so I didn't read a lot about it, but this place was, I guess it happens to people where it's sold as one, it's not really what it is. Yeah. Got it tested and this guy went majorly viral and he was yelling at the guy for me and I got arrested and all that. But that is where somebody's representing it to be something that it's not, they're selling it as one karat. No, is that an easy test to do? Yeah, there's several different ways you can test it, but whenever there's a karat stamp is what that's called, whenever there's a karat stamp, there also has to be a trademark mixed to it. So you can say, this person is who said that it was this karat.

So if there is an issue like that, you can go back to the company that said it was that gold and then you have some recourse. But it doesn't really happen that often. No, so what is, who would put that stamp on there? Whoever created that piece? Yep, exactly. They would put there, so you would do that? Yep. Put your-- Yeah, on every piece of jewelry that we make, it says WP on the inside for William Phelps. And then it will say 14 karat, 18 karat, whatever. Okay, and that's your designation that you certify that's that? Right, yeah. And so you have recourse with whoever makes that piece, whether it's that or not. Yep, we do. But there's different ways to test it.

You can use, it's called the scratch test, where you take the piece of jewelry and you scratch it on a stone. And then there are different acids that you can put on that scratch that's on the stone. And if it's a lower karat, then the acid will, acid will, it'll etch the scratch away and it'll disappear. But if the acid that you put on is put on and the scratch piece stays, that means that it's that karat.

So you can, there's an easy way to tell what the gold content is. And we also have a machine that we can use electronically to find out what the karat of a piece of jewelry is. Oh, electronically, yeah. But it's not something common that you see happens a lot. Not really. It's too easy to get caught doing it. Yeah. So these guys were nuts doing that. Oh yeah. It was like a crazy thing to do. Yeah, definitely. Especially on that scale. If it was just one little piece, that'd be one thing. But if it's a really heavy piece, then there's a huge difference in the value. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Yep. Especially with gold being so expensive now. There's a big difference. Did it just recently jump up a lot? Because you watch that a lot. Do you watch the price of gold? Yeah, yeah. The price recently?

For it to go up that much that fast is like nothing I've ever seen. I had to sell. My father left me when he passed. He bought some gold buffaloes. And when we bought our house, it happened to be in the year COVID. And we couldn't get the loan. We had to come up with some extra money. So I had to sell those. Oh, wow. At the time, I think 1700 is what they were maybe. So in that amount of time, it's doubled. Yeah. More than double. Yeah. Yeah, wow. Incredible. It went up $100 in one day just a couple days ago. Wow. From 45 to 4600 per ounce. Yeah, wow. And it flew through the 3000s.

I mean, I don't really know exactly what the time span was, but it seemed like it was just a few months between

Just barely hitting 3000 to go into 4000. Yeah. So time for people to go look in and see what gold they have around their house and those old jewelry and stuff. Yeah. As recently as just a couple weeks ago, there was a guy that came in and he had a really heavy chain, heavy bracelet, I think actually two heavy chains. And we gave him $10,000 for it. Wow. Yep. Oh, that's good to know. Yeah. I know. Yep. Michelle's got some, a lot of that laying around. Maybe not for long, huh? Yeah, right? Buy a new car with it. Yeah, she's not using it. I know, she never will. She won't, she doesn't wear it. Yeah. Yeah, she's got to have a maid or something, for sure.

Do you have a hidden talent that your customers would never guess?

I like to yo-yo.

Oh really? Yeah. I wouldn't say I'm super skilled at it, but that's something that doesn't come up very often. Rock the cradle, walk the dog. Yeah, exactly. You can do those tricks with it. Sure. Yeah. And you hold on to that skill over here, you understand, you can still do it. There are a lot of people that are a lot better than I am, but it's something I enjoy, it's fun. Do you have one at the store? No, I don't. It's that hidden.

Okay, well, Zach, when we go on Friday, we gotta bring a yo-yo. Okay.

It's awesome.

Do you have music playing when you're creating a design, is there music in the background or what? Yeah, usually like 80s, into rock, that kind of thing. Yeah, that's your jam. We have a stereo in the back of the store and one in the front of the store and they're both hooked up to iPods. Actually, one is a satellite radio, the one for the store in the showroom, so there are no commercials or anything. And then in the back of the store, then we have music that we like to listen to. But it's mostly like 80s and yacht rock and that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. What are some artists or some bands that you would put

On our spotlight and good people playlist for our Spotify playlist? Oh man, Steely Dan, just about anything from Steely Dan. Okay, awesome. Yeah, it's good stuff.

Crosby, Stills, and Nash, yeah. Yeah, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, okay. And Young 2 or just Crosby, Stills, and Nash? Young 2, we'll get him in there.

(Laughing) But mostly like 70s, 80s, Simon and Garfunkel

Heart, I like Rush a lot. You know that kind of thing? Yeah, Rush, they, what was I watching? Oh, I think we were watching Stranger Things recently, which I just started to watch.

And it's got so much 80s stuff in it in the show. And the music is really what caught me, because they have really captured some great music from the 80s that they bring back in that show. It's not a show I would probably ordinarily watch. I think it's very popular amongst 10-year-olds and 12-year-olds. (Laughing)

But they capture the time period of the 80s really well. There's a Rush song on there, I think. I'm pretty sure that's the last time I heard Rush, because when I hear it's such a distinct sound. I love Rush. Oh yeah, absolutely. Represented a period of time in my life. Yep. Yeah, that group. And they were, well, one of them was here, right? They used to come here. One of them came here and got in a fight at the Ritz. I think that time. Yes, exactly. Yeah, that was their guitarist, Alex Lipsen.

Well, it wasn't Geddy Lee or New York, but I moved from New Hampshire to Texas in the early 80s. And that move was pretty mind-blowing because I lived in a place, it was called Campton, New Hampshire. And we had 200 people population. That's all that was in the whole-- Really, that's small. Yeah. So to go from there to Dallas, Texas was just unbelievable. Yeah.,? Well, yeah, especially Northeast. You're not even going, you're not even going to stay in your region. You're going to like, yeah, it's a different world. Pretty much off the grid. Yeah. Yeah. So to go from New Hampshire to Dallas and then see Rush live, at Reunion Arena, that was amazing.

No, what was your Reunion Arena? What was that size like? Is that like Hertz size or what was that? It's bigger than Hertz. Yes, it's the biggest venue in the Dallas area. Okay, and still there? Yep, it sure is. Were you on the floor or were you up in the seats? We were in Lower Balcony. Yeah, but at the beginning of Dallas, you remember the show Dallas? Yeah. There was like a big ball on a building and it was rotating. Yeah. And it had like flashing lights and stuff on it. That's Reunion Tower. The bottom of that is where Reunion Arena was. Oh, okay. I think it's called something else now. Yeah. But yeah, it's a pretty big venue. Who else did you see?

Oh, I've seen Van Halen. Yeah. I saw the police there. I saw Van Halen when they were Van Halen. Yes, yeah, not Van Hagar. Yeah, right. (Laughing) Saw the police. Yeah. Really? Yeah, the Synchronicity Tour I saw. Oh, over there were you in Texas Center? Yeah, the Reunion.

Yeah, in the 80s. I mean, what a great time for music. Yeah, some good shows. Yeah. You ever seen Van Halen in Fort Myers? Was the, I don't know where, Lee County Civic Center was. Yep, had a lot of people there. Yeah.

Journey, and Hill and Foreigner. There.

I wish I hadn't seen Journey when they still had the original singer. Yeah. But I guess the new guy from the Philippines, he sounds almost exactly like him. It's crazy how much he does. It's just different seeing somebody else other than, yeah, that is wild how his voice is so close to that. And I guess that's like, well, the time that he got the job, he couldn't speak a word of English except for the lyrics to Journey. Is that right? No, I didn't know that. No kidding, yeah. But he could sing the English perfectly in the song. Right. Yeah, without an accent. Nope. Yeah, that is wild. Amazing. Yeah, very cool. Yeah.

Any other, have you seen the concerts recently in the last couple years?

We saw Hall and Oates at the Philharmonic.

When did they come there? It was a few years ago. Yeah. Many. Because they don't like each other now, right? No, I don't think so.

How was that show? It was phenomenal. Yeah. We saw Barry Manilow. It hurts a couple, yeah. Oh, it hurts, okay. Just a couple years ago. And how was he?

When somebody does something for so long, he's so polished and it was just phenomenal. Yeah. I mean, for someone that age-- He's got so many songs too. Oh, yeah.,. Yeah, but to see somebody of that age with that much energy still making music that's that good, to see it live, just done exactly as it is on a record or whatever. It's just incredible.

Yeah, I didn't realize that. Yep. I saw, we went to a cover band of The Cure and Depeche Mode. Oh, wow. A couple months ago. They came to Fort Myers. It was Barbara B. Mann. Huh. And they were really, really good. Wow. Both of them. I love both bands. They were so, I was, you thought, if you closed your eyes, you wouldn't realize that it was a cover band. They were that good. Wow. Both of them. And they even dressed the part. It was a great show. Wow. It surprised me. And then I saw, remember that there was that little

Entertainment building in Benita that was there for a little while. Yeah. I think they were gonna do comedy there too. Yeah. Maybe they did for a little while. Yep, that's right.

Livingston and, or it changes at three. And Benita B. Trove. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, in the corner there. And then it was supposed to see Stevie Ray Vaughan's brother play there. March 1st of 2021.

Oh, and then it closed. Yeah. The way it closed, it was COVID. COVID. Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, so I would've loved to have seen him. That would've been cool. Cause it was a great spot to see you. Yeah. It was really, was so nice. Yeah, Jimmy Vaughan. That would be cool. Yeah, but it was canceled, oh well. Yeah, yeah, it's too bad that place didn't make it. Cause it was, they were getting

I saw the psychedelic furs there, which I thought was, that was, most people don't know them, but I saw my wife who's younger than me.

She was like, we had seats that were too close, so we were a little like right there. She doesn't know them. And you're in the front row, you got to move a little bit or something. We're just sitting there. She was like, she knew pretty in pink, but she didn't know any other songs. She was like, what are we doing here? But yeah, it was a good little spot to see. That's for sure. Going to see the Cure and Depeche Mode, those cover bands really was, it was a

I'm not in the crowds and things like that. So it wasn't overcrowded. It was a perfect spot to see, Barbie man. It wasn't like the old days of going to see, I saw you two at the Orange Bowl with the lighters and everything. Oh yeah. It was just 60,000 people. I'm not up for that right now, but it was cool to see. See these guys there. But to say you've seen Rush Live is pretty cool.

Now what were they like compared to the album that you were listening to when you saw them live? Was it? They stayed pretty true to form from what they sounded like on the records. They didn't really go on a lot of tangents or anything.

But it sounded like there was no difference from sounding a studio sound to being live. Being live, oh, there's nothing like seeing entertainment like that live right in front of you. And the sounds are just-- The drums, the bass, the whole guitar. They blended stuff together. I know, and it's amazing that three people could make all that music.

But of course, Neil Peart would have to do his five minute drum solo and have the thing turn around and acoustic on one side and electric on the other side and all that, the big gong and everything. So yeah, that was fun to watch. I think I'd wear a trio that was pretty special. I won't do a rush segment on the spotlight for good people. All right.

On the Spotify thing. Sounds good.

How about books or podcasts? Anything that you read or are interested in or podcasts? I really like a comedy like we were talking about. There's several things like this that I watched with Burt Kreischer, comedians.

But yeah, I probably watch too much TV to be honest. I don't read a whole lot of books. What TV? What do you watch if you're out watching TV?

There's Landman that's out now on Apple TV. Oh, with, is that the oil one? Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Okay.

The three name guy. Yeah. Yeah, I know you're talking about that.

But yeah, I watched that. And there's several shows like Pluribus we're watching now. If you haven't seen that, it's done by Vince Gilligan, the same guy that did Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.

But it's an incredibly great show. Pluribus, what network's that on? That is on Paramount Plus. Okay, Pluribus, have I heard of that? Yeah. So same guy did Breaking Bad. Yep.

Vince Gilligan and also the other one, a Better Call Saul. Yeah, I like him. I like that guy. Yeah, the girl that was Jimmy's girlfriend slash wife in Better Call Saul is the lead role in Pluribus. Okay. Yeah, she is phenomenal. Ray Seagorn is her name. Okay. Yeah. Gotta put that on the list. Yes, that's a mind-blowing one. Oh my gosh, right from the very beginning, it's just incredible. It's a series.

Right now, they just finished the first season and I believe there were nine episodes. Okay, that's good. Did you know that there's nine out? You don't have to wait. Right. I can watch it. Yeah, you can binge watch it. And it's not like they're hours long either. I think they're under an hour each so you can burn through them pretty fast. There's nothing worse than you get really into a show. I know. The next episode comes out next week and then they have holidays. Yeah. You gotta wait longer and that can't happen. That's how Better Call Saul was. Towards the end, it was months between episodes. So we would just not watch it until there were three or four.

Yeah, that's what we gotta do too. I can understand that. We're always counting like, how many we got left, whatever one we're on. Who do we have left? Which is kinda nice with Stranger Things because we got the whole thing, I didn't know it started 10 years ago. I know it's probably the most popular. Long time.

Do you have a go-to coffee order?

We have one of those Nespresso machines. Yeah. And I don't really get coffee out a lot but there are some that I really like. The Hazelnut Nespresso and there's one that's Mexico that's really good and Stormio is another really good one. And they have a peppermint one that's really good. Yeah. So you're not like, I gotta have my Starbucks kinda guy. Not really, I have trouble. You're gonna spend $10 in a cup of coffee. That's what I was just gonna say. If it was really that much better, I could justify it. But it's just stronger, I think.

Plus a lot of sugar. Yeah. And those other drinks that they make. Plus you have to go there and get it. Yeah. So the Nespresso machines. Was there Starbucks in the village for a little while? There was a coffee shop. But not a Starbucks, right? I don't think a Starbucks. I know there was a Lulu lemon. -huh. But I don't think they never did have a Starbucks. There was a coffee, well there's the small one now. Yeah.

I don't know the name of it now. Black something, I think, I can't remember. But yeah, there was a little coffee shop there.

If you weren't a custom jeweler, what do you think you'd be doing?

Believe it or not, I would probably be a marriage counselor.

I think relationships are really interesting.

I tend to be a fairly good listener.

So I think that would be really rewarding to have a couple come in that was at odds and listen to what each one of them say and try to have them work it out. I think it'd be really gratifying. Some of your wife's psychology background Yeah. is led over onto you. I never thought about that, but yeah.

(Laughing) That's awesome.

All right, final question. Okay. What do you love about your life?

I mean, where do I begin?

Of course, my family always comes first.

I'm extremely blessed to be with my wife and share a business with and to bring up kids. And it's just all very rewarding.

I love of course, where we live.

It's funny to me how we live in such a beautiful place that people save up for their vacation to come here for a couple of weeks and we live here. That's awesome. Sometimes we go on vacation and we're like, "Well, this is kind of nice, but Naples is so much better." Right, isn't it hard to go on vacation for a minute? It is, to go someplace that's nicer than where we really live. So I love that. It's really tough. Because we live in paradise, yeah. We do, truly paradise. It's clean, it's safe.

There's a lot of really nice people here. So that's something I'm really happy about. People are happy when they're here because they're on vacation or they're staying here for a little while. So they're in a good mood, they're happy. You ask them how they're doing? Well, I'm doing okay today, but I have to go back to Chicago tomorrow. It's eight degrees outside. Yeah, I love when it's real cold out there. Oh man.

(Laughing) And our skies. My wife being from Michigan and going up there sometimes in the winter and seeing what their gray winters are like. It's how they do it. We had a goldsmith that worked for us for about eight years. And he was from Fargo, South Dakota.

And he said, "Now that I'm here, "I think why in the world did I ever live there? "It's like one of the coldest places you can live." So I don't know what keeps someone there for a lifetime. Right, I agree. And I think they don't know what they don't know. Yeah. Like once you're here and, we have this beautiful

Like you being away from it for a little bit of time, I realize how much I miss it. I love feeling that wall of humidity when I get off the airplane.

(Laughing) Yeah, it hits you in the face. You feel it hits your skin. And I love it's like I'm home. This is where we are. We went to New Mexico shortly after we got married and it's dry in New Mexico. And so I ended up getting a nosebleed because it was so dry. Yeah, yeah. And we found a huge humidor, a walk-in humidor, and I was like, "Oh, I can breathe, this is great." (Laughing) Think of that, yeah. Go to a cigar bar, go to a cigar. Yeah, exactly. We need that. Same thing happens to me when I go out west, I get it dry, my body's used to being Italian skin, it's being sexual with the wet, and I love it. Yeah. Yeah, we do live in a place that

I feel just like you're blessed that we're here. Yeah. And blessed that we have good neighbors like you. Yeah, absolutely. I'm honored that you were able to take time out of your day because I know you guys are swamped right now. Well, I appreciate you having me. Yeah, this is fun. We have never really talked like this. I don't know how I've seen you all the time walking by. I know, I know, for years and years and years. So I'm glad we finally had the chance to do this too. And I really wanna come by, is it Friday we're there, or Thursday, what day are we at the village? Friday? Yeah, Friday morning if it's okay for us to pop in. Sure, yeah, I'll give you a full tour.

Yeah, that'd be fun. Yeah, there's a lot to see. And we'll bring a yo-yo. Okay, no guarantees.

It's been a while, it could be rusty, but. Yeah, all right, and bring, I'm probably gonna clean out our, see what Michelle's got in the jewelry box, but I can't do it, yeah. Sure, yep.

Anything else you wanna add or say? Just thanks for the opportunity, it's really nice to be here.

And it's nice to be able to get to know you a little bit better. Yeah, likewise, I feel the same way. It's awesome that

If you haven't been to the village, you've gotta go and just, because there's always something going on, it seems like when I walk by that corner, there's always something to see. I've always got something good going on there. And now I didn't know about the video that you could be broadcasting what you got in the back. Yeah, I'll show you that. That's gonna be cool to see. Yeah, both Aaron and I have the microscopes with the video camera on them, and we have two TVs in the showroom, so you can see exactly what we're working on. So cool. Yep. Because I can't see anyway, so I need that extra magnification. I know, it's nice, yep.

Well, thanks, I really appreciate you spending time, and you gotta do this again. It definitely sounds good. Yeah, I appreciate it. Look forward to seeing you on Friday. Okay, sounds good. All right, thanks Rob. Yep, thanks, you too.

Thanks Zach, thank you, sir.

Yeah, that's so cool. Yeah.