Meet the unsung heroes of the jewelry world as Michael Burpoe, Host of the In the Loupe Podcast, speaks with Stefanie Wesdorp from Jewel-Craft, a fourth-generation family business that handles service requests for hundreds of retail jewelers around the US.
Stefanie shares how Jewel-Craft has carved out a role as the hidden powerhouse behind so many jewelry stores. Tackling everything from intricate repairs to challenging customizations, Jewel-Craft manages to stay organized while handling hundreds of requests a day.
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Michael Burpoe:
Last night, I was trying to explain to my parents who I was interviewing and I was like, oh yeah, Jewel-Craft are kind of like the man behind the curtain for a lot of jewelry stores. Is that a fair assessment, being seen as the kind of the people who are getting jobs done behind the scenes?
Stefanie Wesdorp:
Definitely, we are the jeweler's jeweler. A lot of people don't know that we're here, but that's exactly what we do. We're here to have the retailers back and make sure that they've got everything that they need for all of their repairs or any custom that they've got everything that they need for all of their repairs or any custom work.
I am the fourth generation at Jewel-Craft. My grandfather and grandmother did a lot of the business and really created a lot of the growth, and then my dad and my uncle. We've been in business since 1947. My brothers and I have three cousins now. We're all here all day, every day, and again kind of behind the scenes and making sure that everything's getting taken care of for our jewelers.
MB:
Oh my goodness, since 1947! Jewelry's changed a lot since then. There's new styles, even metals are a bit different than what they were using back then, but in the same way things are relatively similar. What has changed since your grandfather started it versus what Jewel-Craft is today?
SW:
[laughs] I don't even know where to start! I would say the technology. I mean from a simple microscope to you know, all of the CAD programs, diamond testers, there's so much to understand.
But at the end of the day, a repair is a repair, and that process really hasn't changed. Increasingly, it's more like “fix this, please”. In that way there's a lot more direction, it seems like. Whether you had to use a torch back then or you use a laser for the repair these days, and then just making sure that everything that needs to be taken care of is taken care of.
MB:
But I can only imagine, though, you are sometimes dealing with other custom jeweler’s work, and you're probably also dealing with a wide variety of vendors. Do you ever get rings or jewelry sent in that's been done by a custom jeweler and you're like man, this thing was four seconds away from losing the center stone, or like the work on this is really shoddy? Or on the flip side, do you ever look at a piece and it's like, wow, this person’s work is really impressive?
SW:
I have the benefit of getting to work directly with the jeweler on the other side of the retail counter, and they normally will be very honest and tell us “hey, yeah, I botched this one or this ring has been very well loved by a customer”. So it's really nice to be able to have those very honest conversations, whereas the retailer has to be really soft and careful about what they are saying to the end consumer. So I do have it's a major advantage to get to work directly with the retailer and have those very honest conversations.
Learn more about Jewel-Craft here: https://www.jewel-craft.com/
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Listen to the full 35 minute interview on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.