#32: Bench Jeweler Q & A... Which Leads to More Questions than Answers

We opened the floor and you delivered… so in this episode we’re diving into a full-on bench jeweler Q&A.

We’re talking everything from least favorite watch brands and our favorite stones to set, to how we’re handling growth behind the scenes. We also get into the real questions—why CZs still exist in a world of lab-grown diamonds, what gold below 10k even means, and the awkward moment when customers ask for their gold back after sizing a ring down.

Oh—and we couldn’t avoid it… the infamous 2-week notice in the jewelry industry.

Some answers are helpful. Some are honest. Some might get us in trouble.

Either way… nothing was off limits.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Good morning, Brad.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Cool. Morning, Dusty.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Didn't get to hear the trickle, but my coffee is done. Oh boy.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Run out of space. So we'd not hear I well quick reminder if you stay to the end, you might hear the trickle.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Quick reminder, we do we record these in our shop. Brad is set up at his bench, but my bench is a uh small disaster zone. And so I set up on our like our watchmaker's bench where we just change batteries and do sizings and we're we're the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Sherman, my great no great, nope, nope, my grandfather-in-law. But he was great. Made watches. He was great.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

He he made them from scratch.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

And so he was a watchmaker. We have we just couldn't get rid of his old bench, so we moved it to the back room and we use it for watch batteries, and that's about it. Brad still does some some moina watch your pairs, don't you, Brad?

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Mm-hmm. And I get yelled at about it. Even though the person yelling at me about it is the one that usually took it in.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

That's not true. Sometimes you're working on stuff that I'm like, that's all you, buddy. And you and you admit to it. A hundred percent. Um, so alright. This is our our new thing that I'm making sure we do. Shop update. Shop update. To make sure people know that we're actual jewelers. All right. So we are we are in April now. Mm-hmm. And um as of recording this, so starting in April, our shop, we have decided to um so several years ago we went through we switched to a Monday through Friday um hours, which I do not regret. I'm not saying it's for everybody, but it works for us. And we won't get into why, but because for time's sake. But um, let's see here. And so this month in April, we started, I'm gonna try something different with the mic. Um we uh switched to Tuesday through Friday.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Yeah, we did.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

And that sounds insane. It sounds insane to say it out loud. In fact, we had a when I came in this morning, we had a text on our phone, on the store phone, and it said, Um, so you guys gonna be open on Mondays or what? And I had to gently say Is that what the text actually said? Um I'm paraphrasing but they had asked like a week it looks like they had texted like a week or two ago, and I was just like, hey, we're here. I think they had texted on last month, but it was I knew we were gonna be switching to this schedule. So I just said, hey, we're open Tuesday through Friday, blah blah blah. And then they texted again yesterday after closing time. So are you guys gonna be open on Monday or something along those lines? And I was like, nope, just Tuesday through Friday. There's a couple reasons for that. We've vaguely mentioned it. I won't beat that dead horse. Um, we are mostly two guys. Uh we do have some part-time help here, but when you are the person or people doing all of the batteries and all of the ring sizings and all of the selling and all of the custom job take-in.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

I'm that person. Dusty just makes memes.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

What happens is you spend all of your time doing those type of things and not actually getting work done. And it has proven to be we've just gotten so busy. Good problem, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Yeah. And it was either push repairs to like, okay, you can get this in two weeks, or we can just close on Monday and keep our five to seven day uh turnover time.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Um Monday gives us it's twofold. It gives us a day to come into work uh without customers. Um, so and it's amazing how efficient because we truly don't know how efficient bench jewelers should be because a lot of people listen to this, Brad. They you know, they're the bench jeweler, they they have their little bench in the back. And now they're they're getting interrupted, I'm sure, by salespeople, but they're not going out there to like, hey, look what's hear your design for your custom job. You know, they're not taking in, typing up the repairs, they don't have to hear all the stories, they don't have to hear the stories. I mean, sometimes they get dragged out, but that's hopefully that's a rare occurrence, maybe just a couple times a week and not a like for us, it's uh multiple times a day, every single day. Yes. So it gives us uh a day to just work, get caught up, um, but also, which is the exciting part, it gives us a chance to be a little more advantageous. That's probably not the word. I don't think so. What what does that mean? Yeah, adventurous, right?

SPEAKER_02 4:48

No, no, no, dude. Those are two different words. It means it gives you an advantage.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Yeah, so I don't know. Advantage is a chance to focus on the podcast. There you go. Um, I'm a simple man, okay? Um so which is exciting because literally I don't know what episode number this is, which we're probably gonna start dropping the numbers soon. I was doing some research, Brad, and episode numbers or people sometimes or whether they're putting them at the end or not in there because I guess you know, for they lose count. Yeah. Uh well, well, also, yeah, it's like it's it's all search engine stuff, right? Right. So it's it's completely irrelevant. Um, so we can just uh ditch it. But um maybe we'll push it to like 50 and then ditch it. I don't know. Which is funny because I started like typing out episode one and then the title, and then it was just like hashtag number 27 before long, it'll be none of those. That's right. Um, but long story short, um, it'll give us a chance on these Mondays for when we do schedule guests to not feel so rushed because our previous way we did this was to record before we open our shop, and we were just super uh restricted on our time. And it was like that's why every episode is you know 40 to 50 minutes because that was by the time we got here, got set up, and hit record, that's all the time we had. And then if we had a guest, it was like, oh, so that's a great story. So anyway, we'll go ahead and let you go now. And we don't want that to happen. So with that said, we do have a this next episode coming up after this one should be a pretty awesome guest. That's all I'm gonna say. It's gonna be a pretty is a pretty influential person. Biggest uh name we've had on the show yet.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

That's gonna upset some people that have been on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Mac is gonna be very upset. If you have not listened to the episode with uh Mac, it was like in the uh should I just look at what number that was since we did number it. Okay. Single digits, probably. Good thing I put numbers back in the day. Um, let's see here. I gotta scroll back pretty far, Brad. Lord.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

Oh man, how far back do I have to go? That's what I'm saying. It's probably single digits.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

What do you what episode number do you think it was? Oh, it was episode five. Five.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

So if you want to scroll back to September 30th, 2025, that was a one hour and ten minute long episode, Brad.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

Because he was here and we were closed.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Anyway, long story short, this guest will be tied to that podcast episode.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Yes, he has he has heard the podcast episode with Mac, and he said, no, no, no, no. There's some things Mac left out.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

It sure is. And the best part about that is I could tell that's probably the only episode he's listened to.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

I mean, if you're gonna listen to one, that's probably not the one to listen to.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Uh but you know, whatever. Anyway, that's um, and also this is going to allow us as this spring is sprung and we get closer into summer. What I'm really excited about is uh doing just some little merch stuff. We've been going back and forth on just letting some site just handle it. And I don't know if that's how we want to do it. I think we're gonna do everything in like limited runs, like hey, you know, this month we're doing you know, this shirt design, and there's only so many, and that's it. And then hey, next month we're gonna do, you know, a coffee mug, and then after that, you know, whatever, fill in the blank. That way we can just handle it here and have more creative control, but all that stuff takes time and we are busy people.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

And if you follow us on on the Insta, uh, you see that Callie, who was a guest on episode something, I don't even know. Um double digits, probably. Double digits. Um, she made us some coffee mugs, some pens, and some stickers. So I I have a uh BJM sticker on my laser now.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

We are, and that was gonna be my transition into that, so thank you for doing that.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

We complete each other's sandwiches.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

This was awesome because it kind of gave us a little taste of what's possible.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

Um, I get oh wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I messed that up. We finished each other's sandwiches. I said we complete each other's sandwiches. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Anyway, I think, yeah. Have you ever seen Frozen?

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

I just wondering you don't laugh. Okay. Well, I did I didn't connect the dots right now. It's been a long time since we watched Frozen. Gotcha. All right, go ahead. I'm sorry. Um, but yeah, it just gave us a little a little tease of what's possible. Um, so Callie, once again, thank you so much. Um, before we get too deep into today's topics, I think we have a buy me a coffee to read. Just a reminder. Coffee. Um, a couple of reminders. One, we really want people to move slowly to our YouTube page for these podcasts. I know that is not always the easiest. And if you're a bench store and you're like, I just use Spotify and put my headphones in, that's totally fine. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

But the reason I don't I don't listen on YouTube.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Well, not yet, you don't. Yeah, I know. Because but there might be a reason why. Part of this, these Mondays off is we are slowly acquiring all the necessary tools to professionally and in a good quality way do video podcast. In an advantageous way. In a very it will it would be very advantageous. Let me say, if you follow us on YouTube, um, we got to get those numbers up because honestly, if once we start doing the um it'll be the same podcast, it'll just we'll have camera set up so you can see us. We're not gonna be that secret for for much longer, I guess. Um, but that'll we have a lot more the all the shorts we can make will and the reels will be a lot better with you know our faces. And um hopefully, I mean, less you think we're ugly, which is totally acceptable, but um because we are that's not acceptable. I wonder if we can I bet we can have AI clean up our appearance. Make us look way better. Dude, there's so many um like YouTube kind of podcasty things that I do or like just stuff that I watch on there, and I can tell that they're using some type of it's like it's them, but they're using some type of like AI film. I've even asked AI to like, can you explain to me how because I've watched their videos for let's just say you know a year and I know how they looked, and then like all of a sudden there's a switch of like they look it's like they look real, but they kind of don't look real, right? And it's very subtle, but anyway, you can still listen to us on YouTube even if you want to watch, but but that will be a way to support the show because once uh the YouTube builds up, we can start getting monetized over there. But the only way to support what we're doing right now is is uh if you want us to do some merch, if you want us to do the video podcasting, we do need uh the time and funds to do that. And so right now we have two to read, two to read, and this is this is definitely based off of the last episode because um one of our favorite supporters, the Buffalo Wild Wings Touch Tunes app, which we both know who that is, yes, uh said, I think we had talked about too much fun. What's that mean? And so it said, play too much fun by Daryl something. Do you remember the name, Raf? Singletary. There you go. And then it says Alexa, order mozzarella sticks and another shark bowl marg. Text bar by miss her. I love David. He's the best. A lot of people that are the best. David and Ron are moving down here soon. Uh you just don't know it yet. Speaking of Ron. Stepdaddy Ron, right? Stepdaddy Ron. He will be now called. I like how we're gonna have nicknames for just supporters and guests. Yes. And so far, we've got stepdaddy Ron. But Stepdaddy Ron said, this baby laugh read it yesterday. It says stepdaddies do it because they want to, not because they're required to by law.

SPEAKER_03 13:19

I love him.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

I had a comment from someone, I'm trying to bring it up. Um let's see. Doo do do do. Yeah, I don't I'll I'm gonna have to go back and look. But they basically said we needed, since we have daddy Stoller, we have stepdaddy Ron, we need a watch-themed uh persona named Father Tom.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Who would that be?

SPEAKER_02 13:46

Um, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

That's what we gotta figure out. Um, I did think of oh, that reminds me um oh I can't remember. I think it was Callie. She commented something. Somebody commented something somewhere that was like meow, and I can't remember what it was now. Yeah, we get a lot of that. Yeah, nobody said us nobody has made us say meow in quite a while. So I think we successfully got rid of that trend. Because it was definitely happening. Um also in the gift basket that Callie sent us was a uh wonderful note um encouraging us. So thank you once again, Callie, publicly. So um, because we're we're slowly getting into this Monday vibes of recording, although we're not recording this on a Monday, ironically enough. Um, this might be our last episode that feels kind of constrained. Um, and then starting, you know, in the next following weeks, we'll start bringing on all the guests that we've been wanting to have on for quite a while, but we've been intentionally just holding them off. God, we have a whole list of people. Some of them have tentatively agreed. I found it, found it doesn't.

SPEAKER_02 14:51

Oh, go for it. Taylor underscore tot 98. Ask about a father time. Thank you, Taylor. Great question. Anyway, that's what you interrupted me for. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Yes. Oh my god. Oh, this is funny. It is weird that you just said that because that account has sent in a question for us.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Thank you. That's what I'm a professional podcaster.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Perfect transition. So, what we did was uh this is the importance of watching our stories because sometimes in advance we know, like, hey, we gotta talk about this on the next episode. But there are times, believe it or not, where we're like, crap, we gotta record and what we want to talk about. Uh, I don't know. So we'll post on our story, like, hey, ask us a question. Hey, what do you guys want to hear us talk about? And we've done that a couple times, and sometimes we don't get to all of them. We we're sometimes we don't get to none of them. We are so horrible at that. But today kind of is a little bit of a filler episode, so it's just you know interacting with some people that that um sent in some questions. So do you want me to go first, Brad? Sure. Since you mentioned Taylor underscore tot 98, I can't see if that's the pictures are so tiny on here. I can't tell if that's a he or a she. It's a Taylor. Either way, Taylor said, What is your least favorite watch brand and why is it Invicta? I should have stopped. That's a great question, and then said follow-up question. Which is no, that's great. This is really funny because yesterday is yesterday when we were opening our we had just opened our package from Cali, and so we were just being stupid to come up like merch ideas, and I'm like, how funny would it be if we came like partnered with Invicta to do like a bench dueler memes collab? Yes. And just and our only goal in partnering with them would be to just make it like impossible to work on.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

Oh yeah, and it would be huge, like you uh like double the size of their biggest, biggest watch.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Yeah, and I don't even I'm tempted because I don't even think I would do a screw, uh a screw on back. I would do the ones where it looks like a screw on back, but there's like a hidden little notch where you have to pop it off, but the back is just gigantic, so you don't have any dyes big enough to press it on.

SPEAKER_02 17:05

I remember when we were at the uh place we worked at the mall, yeah, and we got one that was uh like they they put every I I don't know, I guess they put it all together and then they like plate it, but it was plated uh black. And I think we broke I know we broke one case wrench trying to get that thing open. Um because I just remember Mike trying to get it open. It was just the best. When that thing was so marred up by the time we actually got it open, when those things first came out, it was like, how would you know?

SPEAKER_01 17:40

You see those little those little teeth carved into the back, and you're like, you're just like oh it's like why is it not coming off? Because you're like, I don't want to just hammer it off and risk right messing up the threads. Um honestly, I don't know if Invicta is my least favorite brand, though. Really? You know, I I don't know if these people ever listen to this, and I honestly don't care. Um, but my least favorite band brand, and and is some it's personal. And this is not a reflection of the people, by the way. But my least favorite brand is um my mind just went like what's the brand that we carried here shortly, briefly. Umaku. Oh, a baku, okay. And if you don't know, again, this is this is not personal towards the people, they're fine. Um, but it's basically a baku is basically like Skagans.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

Yeah, I think you can lump it all together because it's it's the same, basically. The you know, if you've seen a Skagen, you've seen an Obaku.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Yeah, and it's just that concept of like the case back is like way smaller than the case. Yep. And if it's just it's the dumbest design.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

And the crystal is like all at the front, and there's like nowhere to to put a case press. I mean there is, but you gotta be super careful.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

Yeah, so if you want to replace the movement or you know, fix a marker, like you just can't. Yeah. It's just now I think some of the obviously that doesn't apply to every model.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

Yeah, they did have most of their models they had to use you had to use a special tool. They came out basically it had a ring around the dial, so you would press from the back onto the dial, and that would push the crystal, the ring, the dial, the movement all out from the front. Not a great design.

SPEAKER_03 19:35

No.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

And uh stupid. I I I hated them so much, and I think it was personal because they knew we did watch repair, and so they would just be like, hey, you know, and I'm like, Yeah, we can if the if it's simple stuff, like we can handle it. And um, but like 70% of the time I'd be like, guys, we can't we can't do this because we don't have the equipment, like we're not we're not watchmakers here. Like, come on, right. It was ah, I just got to where I just hated them so much.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

But you dislike that more than Invictus.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Well, you know, there's there's some Invictus that come in that are just like they don't they're just you know, change the battery and get them out of here. It's not a big deal. I think I like as far as if I see somebody carrying an Invicta in, yeah, that triggers me probably way harder.

SPEAKER_02 20:22

Invictus. Yeah. Which some of them are really nice and some of them. Uh yeah, I would definitely say Invictus my least favorite, just because I mean it's my least, but also like I chuckle every time I see one, so it's okay. It's it's like yeah, I don't like you, but you make me laugh.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

It was it last week, I think, because Ariu, you know, she'll greet people and they'll be like, I need a watch battery. And it was the most I think I took a picture and posted it on the story maybe a couple weeks ago. But man, it was the biggest. I mean, some of them are just getting insane. And it's like, what are you right? What are you even doing? Why like this is not comfortable.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Nope. Oh, we're at the burping time.

SPEAKER_04 21:07

I was trying to just kill it.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

He's not meant to be talking this early in the morning. For real. Um, but it's just it's you can't help but have the same thought of like the guy who gets out of the truck that's like raised eight inches with 40-inch wheels on it. It's like, bro, like, why?

SPEAKER_02 21:28

That's that was the whole point of the overcompensating song that BJ Mandrell created.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

Um, so if you haven't heard that, go back and listen to it because I that's still one of my favorite songs just because I I know you mentioned his name, but we finally got a visit from BJ Mandrill, who is almost finished with his like little temp job that he's been doing.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

Uh World Tour. That's basically what it is.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

And um we I'm thinking we're thinking May, right? That they're might the album might be ready in May. Might drop. And just a little bit the bits and pieces we've heard. This is somehow gonna top volume one. Maybe. We'll see. Yeah. Um do you have you said you had a few questions. Were any of them watch related before we just move on from watches? Because no. Okay. Um do you want me to keep one or do you have you have one that's just you're just dying to get to let's hear it.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

Um Dahlia um ask have you guys considered hiring more sales staff so that you can focus on repairs wow never even once considered that's a genius. I mean I mean obviously well okay no it it is a great question because like yes yes we have and so you know we're in this position where it's like okay we're doing the repairs do we bring in a full time sales staff and is that sales staff one person or is it two?

SPEAKER_01 23:10

And then to to pay that person you know we we're like well crap we would have to um basically we'd have to be in a location that's like we're we just don't need like a full-time salesperson I don't think yeah it we're at that teetering point of we have to make decisions again this is you know this is just applies to us so I won't want to dwell on it too long where it's been me and Brad and one other part-time person off and on for a few years now and it seems to be a good balance because there are seasons as you might know where we honestly could handle it by ourselves and then there's seasons where it's like we could probably use a second part-time person or a full-time person. Um but it all comes down to you know age and stage of life and what you're looking for I think we are in position to where if we really wanted to we could uh find a new location uh double our size and hire a couple of full-time people and we could actually be pretty successful. Yep and that has you know that that idea has always been there. I think the more me and Brad talk and hang out and experience life and um I don't think that's what either one of us wants.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

Right. Like we're thinking in game would be like going more be like a a private jeweler.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Yeah that would be our our if we're looking you know 10 years down the road we don't the op the two options are um to be become more uh private jeweler by appointment and focus on the custom work and the high end repairs um and try to get away from you know holo chains and watch batteries um do but we could easily just say no in the next five years like we we want to expand and have a much bigger showroom and a couple salespeople and then we would be freed up to just do repairs and just kind of focus on this on podcast stuff. But that would just it just brings a whole nother level of see there's different that's what I think is interesting about this business because I've seen successful people do both extremes. Yeah and so you really have to figure out like what what what do you want to do? I think there are in some instances expanding growing is exciting um to me that doesn't sound exciting I'll be honest right sounds well it's like a lot of stress yeah it's just everything doubles the the the income doubles but the money going out doubles and the stress doubles. And um we can't be lighthearted and funny if we're stressed out all the time now can we?

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Dahlia jeez telling you she's she's one of our biggest contributors on Insta.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

No that's it is a great question and it's obviously you know a little it's something we wrestle with a lot especially when we are overwhelmed. Yeah like no for sure can we please bring somebody in uh our part-time girl Arya is doing an amazing job it takes a long time for someone to really understand this industry and like be a good salesperson and handle all the questions and all the things that come in and so that's another thing it's like well let's just hire a full-time you know sales manager or whatever right um and if they have experience that is a whole nother set of issues that you have to may have to train out of them um and if they have no experience then it's it's just a lot more work for me to babysit them and to teach them um but with with BJ and Ari um we've been really lucky. Yep and so I think we're I think we're we're happy where we are and so that's the reason that we have not considered that I mean we did consider it we we considered it and then we decided not to um all right so let's see somebody asked Rebecca Becca Beck wow that's quite the name Rebecca your favorite stone to set slash stone you'd yeet out of the window. Favorite stone set diamond oh yeah yeah I for some reason I was thinking uh shapes which I'll get into round next next question I am not the stone setter so um Dusty I'll let you answer this no uh obviously diamonds um I would be fine if I know people get enjoyment out of doing gemstone stuff but I don't I don't I mean I'll do it but they're always cut stupid half the time yeah I'm maybe if I had like higher end clients and they had better taste and bought expensive gemstones that were cut better maybe I wouldn't but then I would think for some reason all I think about is this is gonna break every time I work on a colored stone no matter what it is. I don't mind setting diamonds at all there's not I I obviously for just efficiency yeah round is quick and easy um I get an odd satisfaction out of doing um pears princess and marquise because of the points um because that new approach uh they teach you some tricks uh new approach school for jewelers might have them on one day yeah just saying um be good that they threw some money our way someday uh they do a great job in their stone setting courses uh which is I had some knowledge of setting stones but um I don't know how many years ago I went there um it is a little obviously it's a little more you have to I think the reason I like it is I have to like stop pay attention take my time where a round is just like boom boom boom move on to the next one um honestly I think I hate setting like cushions and ovals I feel like every it's I feel like I'm constantly like is that straight is that doesn't look straight but with with points it's easy to get them straight and with obviously around it's easy to get straight but it's like ovals and cushions I'm just like even if it's straight I'm like isn't that straight though? It's a little crooked I can see that um so yeah yeah uh I hope that answers that question Rebecca Becca Beck Becca Becky uh this was more of a comment because we said ask us a question and this guy said uh I don't sometimes the handles are weird but the Sonelli okay uh he said nah you guys are cool just the way you are keep doing you fine we're just that's what we're gonna do I have a question I want to say for last so we gotta make sure we save time for it but do you have another one I do from Pine Tree Relics one of my favorite um what's the next big jewelry trend and if we're anything we are knowers of what the next big thing is. That we you know we will hopefully have a guest on this summer to answer that question. I don't know who I was like do we have anyway I feel like the hidden halo trend is I feel like it's kind of chilling a little bit. I'm not saying we're not getting them but I feel like I haven't done one in like a month or so. I don't know if that's just us and coincidence or what I don't know um but I feel like I haven't done any um I'm trying to think what's on my bench to do I'm pretty sure there's not one on there. No but yeah just a lot of I don't know I I I I truly don't know I yeah we all know I think I do think that whatever the trend is it's gonna be a reaction to the high price of gold and silver and I think that is going to be in a bad way and I mean either every like all these vendors like coming especially let's say like because they're already getting ready I would imagine these manufacturers are getting ready for the fall and the end of the year already now. Right. And so I'm guessing in the summer and fall we're gonna start seeing you know what they're really gonna be trying to push for the holidays and I have a feeling it's either going to be lots of lab grown which helps bring uh price down. Um which I've been saying for like I feel like five years when lab grown came out I'm like why does silver jewelry can they just don't use CZ can we just get rid of CZs? Like there's no reason for them anymore. Just do all lab grown yep it's so much easier to replace to work on and anyway I'm that's a whole nother tirade um I'd be okay with the death of CZs forever. We don't need them just use lab grown diamonds. Agreed um we don't need white sapphires white topaz CZs just kill them all lab grown diamonds for life for life at least when it comes to like inexpensive cheap jewelry. Right. What were we talking about? Alright I lost my train of thought oh trends um so it's either gonna be really lightweight dainty stuff um or at some point I think some of these manufacturers are gonna have to start coming out with carrots below 10 carat carat options below 10k yep I mean I d I don't I don't see how we don't eventually get there.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

Right?

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Like nine or like below that yeah I'm thinking just like I would not be surprised if we see like eight carat gold because what that was I mean that was a thing right like in like England or something? That's what I thought nine was it? Maybe you might be right. Um the eight or seven carat gold because it just has like a I don't know let me see that would be that would be 29% gold I wonder if there's like a cutoff like what would so eight would be because I think several years ago so eight would be a third gold yeah eight carat yeah so eight carat you could say it's a third gold and and I know that the door has been open for this to happen eventually anyway with some of the regulations or deregulations I don't know but basically basically as long as you clearly label it and mark it the actual carat it doesn't matter what carrot it is so if it's two carat gold that's fine you just have to clearly make sure that everyone knows it's two carat gold and stamp it as such where in the past I think ten karat was like the minimum. Gotcha. Now there's no minimum it just has to be clearly identified. So I will be curious to see and then when it happens I mean I do think for lower price point stuff I mean it would be kind of silly it's just like the people who are you know like well I'm not selling lab grounds I think it would be at least silly to not at least explore what that would look like.

SPEAKER_02 34:04

Yeah I mean if you're selling 10 carat and why wouldn't you sell eight carat?

SPEAKER_01 34:08

I I do think it side side note I think it is kind of funny when jewelers are like no I only sell 14 carat minimum and I only sell natural diamonds minimum. On one hand that's kind of cool if you have that type of business set up. On the other hand um I just don't like when people look down on other people for not doing that because it's like we're all here to run a business and make a living so if customers come in and like hey I want a lab round diamond I'm not gonna try to talk them out of it. I'll be like sure yeah let's yeah let's do it. Come on. Yeah I mean I do know there's certain brands that will just say like okay we just do 18 carat just because the look of it you know no brands is fine but I'm thinking like just actual jewelry stores that draw these weird hard lines about things they will or will not sell um I think if you are that big of a shop and you're that successful and you can do that I have no problem with it. The only problem I have is is if if they look down or make fun of or because it pops up in JJ in the comments all the time it's like you know I'm better than you. It's like no I mean I have kids in a family so if if I have 10 people a month coming in for lab ground diamonds I'm gonna sell them. I'm not gonna try to talk them out of it and then just not have that income. Sorry but that's just me what's how much time somebody hurt you you almost say 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 35:27

Next I'm out of questions. I have one from BJ Mandrill but I cannot read it.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Yeah it's explicit basically okay um somebody said this will make require a backstory for you Brad unless you remember this because you're not on JH Day but uh Melanie uh golden jewelry said uh which one of you broke the last ultrasonic? Do you remember that that big thing on JHJ?

SPEAKER_02 35:51

Yeah I remember everybody talking about it like that was like a big thing.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

We are gonna have to do like a best of JHJ episode where you just we like go way back in time and just see all the just the dumbest things that were ever or just the most viral things that happened over there. But anyway it was a big ultrasonic thing it was like a j it's still a joke to this day if it comes up but it's like you know who broke the ultrasonic I won't go into that but that is a funny topic for a future episode so I won't dive into it.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

A funny thing about our ultrasonic was forever our knob on the ultrasonic broke or so we didn't have one and so we used pliers to turn on and off and I'm like this is so annoying. I'm sure they make knobs so I just go on Stuller yeah for like four bucks you could have a knob I'm like really for it's forever we've just been using pliers kind of like our bathroom does it have a handle now it doesn't I mean the bathroom sink.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Yeah oh EPS is here tall dusty all right um uh Melanie also asked uh how do you control your face when customer asks for gold back on the half ring down sizing uh I'll talk about this while Brad's not here because uh she ended up sending me a picture of the little tiny piece of gold and it's again it's come up in past episodes um but yes I I don't mind when people are like hey when you size that down can you give me back the gold I get it it is annoying and I do we all know that part of the reason uh sizing down a ring is less expensive than going up is because you're removing gold and there's a eventually you're keeping these little tiny pieces of gold. Basically it was just a question Brad about like how do you control your face when customers ask for the gold back when you're sizing down a ring a half size. Yeah I don't and it thankfully it does not happen a lot here and because it doesn't happen a lot here we're just like that's fine whatever and we just give it back um because I kind of like doing that as well because it's like here here's what you think you you know here's what actually came out. Here here is your 11 cents of gold that you are definitely going to lose. Yep and and truthfully it's gonna fall on my bench at some point and gonna get swept up and yes yes it does add up but people act like it's so so stupid.

SPEAKER_02 38:16

What you always do well what what I we did not do at first well what I haven't done at first was people would be like oh okay great so how much will you buy this back for and I used to like weigh it like oh yeah it's like three dollars or whatever it is and they would just take it off their bill now I just tell them it's too small to weigh so now they can just take it home and lose I don't care.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Like how much how much you buy this back nope it didn't even register on the scale ma'am get out of here. So I have two questions. One we'll get through quickly and then one we'll save for last Luca asked how do you how do I know you're not gonna swap out my stones and in parentheses it's a hundred dollar bracelet this is you know obviously this is a topic we've we've died into the actually we have a whole episode dedicated to this so Luca or anyone interested in how we handle the whole swap your diamonds it's one of our best episodes actually as far as the numbers go. By the way we are approaching 10,000 downloads on our podcast thank you guys um keep spreading the word and um let's get them numbers up we'll celebrate 10k downloads all right last question Brad um this is a longtime listener slash supporter of all the things we do get messages from I won't say who the account is but she asked and I do know a little bit about her history she works at a jewelry shop I think it might be a signet one I could be wrong on that but basically she said should I give a two weeks notice I'm leaving my current corporation job for an independent business. So I believe she is leaving like a signet type store like a Jared's or something like that and moving to a more independent jewelry that's that's uh so do you give a two week notice?

SPEAKER_02 40:09

It's a very serious question for us.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Um and you have uh five minutes to answer.

SPEAKER_02 40:15

Yeah I mean I'm old school so yeah you always work you always give them a notice but yeah if you don't you don't I don't know what kids are doing these days.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

Yeah I will say do you give a notice sure because in this situation it is a corporation so I would treat it as such. I do think there's a little more nuance if it was like hey I work for this family and there's it's just the mom and the the dad and I'm their only employee and like I would argue like hey you should probably give them like a two or three month donus. Oh I was gonna say then you wouldn't give them a notice at all. No well you would either do one extreme or the other if you care about them you would say like hey I'm right I'm leaving in a few months you got to start preparing but if it's an awful environment then I'd probably just yeah yeah um but I say all that to say typically in the jewelry industry when you give a notice like that they pretty much just say hey you know because there's there's just too much liability there because not that you would do this but I think management would think there's too much of a risk of you like hey you're about to leave in a couple weeks so you're gonna do either crappy jobs even though you might may or may not or you're gonna start you know pocketing some gold or diamonds and even though you would or would not I think that's the consensus for like a security liability standpoint is if a jeweler bench jeweler gives a two week notice you kind of say hey actually they automatically become thieves. Yes exactly isn't that interesting how that works right hey thank you for uh serving our company for the last seven years oh you're about to quit well get out of here thief I'll pay you your two weeks now don't ever come back that is how this industry works out sure is I've seen I we've seen it we have seen it but I've also seen it where it's like hey this is actually crippling to us because we're such a small company and uh like yeah could you please work every single day up until your last day I remember my last day when I quit my put in my notice because I was going to open my own shop and made it very clear we they needed me until the very last clock out session and I will never forget that last day at my old job. Oh man it was on a Saturday it was in the mall super busy just batteries repairs galore I mean I worked more of like the front type thing but we still had to you know do all the stuff and always a line of people dropping off picking up waiting for watch batteries and when my shift was over I mean the the mall was not closed yet it was just my shift was over and we were so busy that it was like this anti-climatic just like all right well I'm got I everybody was just busy like changing batteries and doing repairs and I'm like all right guys I'll see you guys later I just walked out while everybody was busy and it was weird to like hugs and like gifts and all the fans but they were there's like customers everywhere and I'm just like I gotta I gotta go I gotta go open my own store and that's how my job is on that note it's time for us to open up our shop and I'm looking forward to these next several episodes I'm looking forward to our guests next week please tune in please share this thank you guys for listening can't wait to hit 10k downloads and don't forget to follow us and subscribe on YouTube or if you're not gonna do that it'd be better send us a bottom

SPEAKER_00 44:26

Back to the bandage. See ya next week.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

You don't want that. I will take that. I don't want it. Oh my god, I like this.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

Core fight. Did you just turn something on?

SPEAKER_02 44:40

Your mom turned her right on.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

I turned the heat up so that I can take my jacket off, but now I gotta turn it off. Now I should kick it off.

SPEAKER_02 44:58

Alright, I gotta figure out how to get to where all these questions are.

SPEAKER_01 45:02

I have a couple notes saved. Some notes. Alright, let me check these labels. I do know these mics we gotta get. I think I was reading more about them. We just gotta get, you gotta be like two to three inches away. Oh, okay. Get your mouth about two to three inches away. Shut up. Shut up, Dusty. Alright, do you need to oh crap? Um do you need to adjust anything? No, I think I'm in good shape. Well, I don't do good shape. I'm not in good shape. You are a shape. Alright, I'm almost done with the coffee.

SPEAKER_03 45:48

Fairly rotund.

SPEAKER_01 45:51

I wonder if people uh stick around just to hear the the coffee at the end. You know people do now. They're just like I'm just gonna fast forward to the end. If you go to your if you go to your story and then the once you get to that question one, if you just kind of swipe up, it'll show them all.

SPEAKER_02 46:14

Oh, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_01 46:16

And I just took a screenshot so I could see it. Okay, who's texting me at this hour? Oh, that's our stellar buddy. I don't I don't like this is gonna be at the end anyway, right? But Evan said you don't like XRF guns, you wouldn't understand.

SPEAKER_02 46:44

I don't even know what that means.

SPEAKER_01 46:45

Yeah, it's the little x-ray guns for gold that Oh, okay. You know, everybody's like you But what does that have to do with NASCAR?

SPEAKER_02 46:53

I don't know. We'll get to that later. All right. Okay. Alright, let's see. So one of the benefits of having an iPhone, I did not realize this. You guys were blowing up my phone on the way here. Yeah. And it was like, would you like to mute this conversation? I was like, Yes, I sure would. So I muted you guys just for an hour though.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

Okay. Oh, I mute so many conversations. Hmm. You're just so much better than everybody else. This we got exactly forty five minutes. All right, all right, let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Three, two, one.