Five Personal Jewelry Stories That Are Impacting My Life

Mike goes solo and shares five real-life ways jewelry shows up in our world, from a family brooch tradition to the surprising value hidden in old coins. Along the way, we unpack what “worth it” really means when selling an old piece of jewelry.

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Transcript

Welcome And Five Jewelry Topics

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome back everybody to In the Loop. What is up, everybody? My name is Michael Burpo. Thanks again for listening to In the Loop. This week we're going solo again. Uh, it's been a little while since I did one of these, and I've interviewed some awesome people, but every now and then, very uh, I don't know, narcissistically of me. I really enjoy just having a little one-on-one chat. And here are five topics related to jewelry that I think are really interesting. Uh, these are more kind of like personal kind of experiences, but also some things I'm paying attention to. And one of the things that I uh have been thinking about more as I, you know, live in a small town is where does jewelry fit in in my life? Uh, around here, luxuries don't usually take the form of um of jewelry as much. A lot of times they take the form of like really quality workwear or tools or things like that. But I don't know, I still really like jewelry, so I wanted to talk about that a little bit more. So, in joy me talk about five topics surrounding jewelry that I think are really interesting.

Punchmark Sponsor Message

SPEAKER_00 1:10

This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the jewelry industry's favorite website platform and digital growth agency. Our mission reaches way beyond technology. With decades of experience and long-lasting industry relationships, Punchmark enables jewelry businesses to flourish in any marketplace. We consider our clients our friends, as many of them have been friends way before becoming clients. Punchmark's own success comes from the fact that we have a much deeper need and obligation to help our friends succeed. Whether you're looking for better e-commerce performance, business growth, or campaigns that drive traffic and sales, PunchMark's website and marketing services were made just for you. It's never too late to transform your business and stitch together your digital and physical worlds in a way that achieves tremendous growth and results. Schedule a guided demo today at punchmark.com slash go. And now back to the show.

Wearing Brooches To Honor Family

SPEAKER_01 2:11

So here are five topics I find really interesting and how jewelry is involved in my life and what I've been thinking about these days. Uh so the first one. I did an episode a few episodes back all about my grandmother's brooch. And I was bequeathed this Lucien Picard um brooch, and I really kind of liked it. It was probably my most personal, you know, in-the-loop episode of all time. I I don't know if it can get much more personal than that. And I actually had a really nice reception. I actually had a number of listeners reach out, say some really nice things to me, and uh a lot of listeners that you know shared my sentiment, and also some family members listened to it. It was just like a really a very special episode. But I want to give it a little update. So one thing that was really cool is uh at my grandmother's funeral, uh funeral, I guess it was more of like a celebration of life, but it was at a church, and one thing that was really neat was she had all these brooches, and we all wore uh all the men of the family. So she had um, you know, several grandsons, and also my my dad, and also my uncle. We all wore some brooches, and it was really neat because we all wore, you know, dark suits, and to look around, you saw these like pops of color, and you know, I wore my fancy Lucien Picard one, and then my my brother wore this one that was actually my mom's, and it was this really nice heavy gold one with these um sapphires in it, and I thought that was really cool. My brother, um Steve, wore this one that looked like a Celtic knot, and it had like white and also yellow gold kind of like tied up. Um, that was really pretty. My dad wore um one that looked like a uh a pine cone on a pine needle branch, and that's really fitting because he was a forester, and that was really neat. Um, I thought I felt very apt for him, and um, yeah, all these people they they all wore like different different pieces that kind of felt like they I don't know, spoke to them a little bit more, and I thought that was a really uh a neat tie-in. Um it was again, it was just one of those ways that jewelry can like help to share the story and extend someone's love in a very tactile kind of way. Um yeah. I haven't worn my my pin again since then, but I haven't really had many opportunities. I'll probably wear it to an art opening uh soon. I just think it's just uh a really cool thing. I also someone told me I should also consider putting it on a chain and wearing it like a uh medallion. I don't know, that's a little it's a little much for me, but we'll see. Anyways, I want to give an update on that. Um, yeah, it was really special. All right, here's another one. Uh

Workshop Conversations And GIA Reality

SPEAKER_01 5:05

I wanted to talk about the conversations I had at the client workshop in Charlotte, North Carolina. Uh, some of the conversations I had were so interesting. One uh it's no secret, like I go to this, uh uh, you know, Punchmark is very nice, they fly me down, and it's part of the time for me to see my coworkers and kind of connect with them and feel like I'm part of the company more than I do when I'm, you know, coming in through Zoom. Even though, as far as most people go in the company, I'm very uh visible for the company because I lead all hands and I'm always I always have my camera on on Zoom because I don't know, it's just like an accountability thing for myself. Um, I don't expect other people to have it, but for me I do. But some of the conversations I had at this client workshop were really interesting. Um, so one in particular, I spoke to two of the girls that uh work for Falls Jewelers in uh Cannapolis and um just north of Charlotte. And they come to, I mean, Falls Jewelers haven't missed a uh single client workshop over the years. And what's really cool is uh the girls were getting their uh gemological degrees, and one of them was quite young. I think she was like 20, and the other girl had been with the the company for a couple of years at this point, and they were both getting their uh GIA uh degrees um at the same time, and I was really interested. So while we were at Fahrenheit on the rooftop, um I was asking them a whole bunch of questions, like, oh, so like how does you know, how does this work? And they were talking about how, oh, there's these different lessons and you have to take these tests every week. It sounds like a lot of work, and uh very sheepishly I kind of told them I was like, you know, at one point I thought about taking taking the GIA like you know gemologist uh class and seeing if I could like pass it and like what would go into it and and getting that degree because one, it'd be cool to say I'm uh you know, I have a GIA, but um at the same time, I when I was hearing them, I was like, man, there's no chance I would have ever passed that. It sounds really complex and very interesting, and like you really gotta be paying attention. Uh, they talk a lot about like also it's kind of expensive, you know, Falls jewelers um pays for it for them. But if it was coming out of your pocket, oh my gosh, I think that it's like maybe it's 50-50. I don't know what the deal was, but it sounds like it's a pretty serious commitment. And I must admit, I all those letters that go at the back end of your name, it's terrible to say. I've never really super respected all the you know, there's so many of them, you know, with the exception of PhD and MD. Um I I've never really liked, or CPA actually is another one that I really like, sort of like will make me turn my head at. But that one, I now I've learned that's a lot of work. So just something I thought was really interesting. Another conversation was uh I had a good conversation with Cole from um Wares Jewelers. I did a whole in the loop episode with him, so if you go back, you can listen to that. But it was super interesting to talk to him about uh what he's been doing to his store to make it feel more like his. Um, one of the things he mentioned in the in the loop episode was he talked about uh how he makes the music be more modern or more music that he likes, as opposed to like 70s classic rock. And that just struck me as such a a human decision that it it's really stuck with me. Um listening to him talk about this, he it also is crazy. He's really young, and for some reason in my mind he was always like 40. But uh no, he's like my age and he's just kind of figuring this whole thing out, and he's putting his whole heart into it, and he's you know, trying his hardest. I thought that that was a really cool conversation. And then the last conversation at this client workshop that I thought was really neat was it was just so human, was talking with um Ray Lance from uh Lance's Diamond Shop, I believe it is. And uh he's talked about how he's listened to In the Loop before, but um, we also had in common a different podcast that we listened to. Um, it's with this guy, uh Scott Galloway. And I actually, you know, have modeled a lot of the solo conversations that I have on this over his way of hosting. Um, he's one of the, I mean, he's a business um analyst and he's very successful. He started a lot of companies. Uh, he's this very popular podcast called Pivot, which he hosts with uh Kara Swisher, who's um tech reporter, and he's also does one, Scott Galloway, um, or Prof. Markets, I think it's called. He's also written several books, and I do find it very interesting that we had in common this sort of perspective about business, but the conversations that I had surrounding jewelry were so refreshing. Um, it's so interesting. A lot of times I go to these networking jewelry events, and sometimes I'm like hesitant to talk about business because I don't want to be known as the guy that he oh, I can't I can't talk about anything except for business. So like I kind of steer too far away and I'm like asking them about their you know lives and like learning about them as persons. But there is something interesting to know that like these people do care about business, if you know what I mean. Um, yeah, it was just a cool conversation. Um, I'm really inspired by especially about the Falls girls. Uh, I hope that when they get their GAA degrees that I um that they'll reach out to me and I would love to interview them to hear about the process. It was it's it sounded hard. So yeah, here's another one.

Smartwatch Utility Versus Mechanical Charm

SPEAKER_01 11:02

So I was given not exactly from my grandma, but uh my mom had this extra watch hanging around, and it's a mechanical watch, it's a classic uh boulevard watch, and it's uh has a pretty small face, and it's had me thinking about the topic of wearing a mechanical watch versus a smartwatch. Uh I'm an Apple Watch kind of guy, I'm an Apple product kind of guy, I should say, and I've been wearing an Apple Watch for the past um three years at this point, two and a half years. And here are the things that I like about an Apple Watch. I really like how it tracks my sleep, and I really like how it tracks uh my workouts. So I wear it when I go for a run, and I really like that it um does all the workout things for me. Like, you know, I can just I just have it connect in my Strava and it's two buttons for me to start and stop a workout. As opposed to on my on my phone, the workout process is a little bit more in depth, and I also just hate being tied to a phone, so um, yeah, there's that. Here's things I hate about an Apple Watch. I can't stand how often I have to charge it. Because if I wear it at night, I have to charge it during the day, which is not the worst thing in the world because at the same time I work from home, so I could just charge it during the day, but I also want to wear it. I don't know. But I've been wearing this bully a bunch more, it's a very small face, it's um it's like a more of a I don't know, it kind of reminds me of like one of those skinnier citizen watches, or like not that it's as fancy as uh Patek Philippe, but it's more of like um it's a smaller watch. And what's funny about it is it's really scuffed up. It looks like someone wore the crap out of it, and I think that my grandpa it was my grandpa's, and I think he did. And I used, you know, I did a little bit of looking, and this is a pretty classic um watch, but it's definitely not worth a ton of money. It's you know, the evaluation I got through ChatGPT was that it was like probably $300, $350. If I touched it up a bit more, maybe it would be worth like $500. But at the same time, that's not enough for me to sell, you know? So I've been wearing it. What do I like about it? I love the little ticking noise. I wonder if you could hear this. Probably not, but it ticks, and I love that it has no um battery to it. And something about this, the fact I took it, I put it on my wrist, and then if you can hear this, that's me winding it. What's so nice about it is that when you wind it up, it just immediately started working. And there's been all this like stuff that it's incredible to me that this was made so many years ago. Uh, this is estimated to be from like the 40s or 50s. And what's so interesting is that like it just works. And as I've been thinking about it a little bit more, it's like it's crazy that this thing just sat dormant for probably 30 years because my grandma didn't wear it. And when you take it back out and you twist it up, the hands spin and it just works. And it's had me thinking, I I was wondering whether or not I should send it to uh to Vincent possibly to to have him uh you know clean up or like make it I don't know, like the the face of it, the dial of it is very um very dark and it has like a bunch of smudges inside of the glass. And the and the crystal itself, I I think it's called the crystal, right? It's like the glass over the top of the face, is uh really scuffed. I have it just in my hand. And what's really interesting about it is that it has this second hand and the second or uh I'm sorry, the yeah, the second's hand, and it runs on like this little tiny dial on the bottom. And it just is so dainty. It's crazy to me that someone was able to make this so many years ago. But it's had me thinking about it, what do I not like about this watch? Well, it doesn't track my sleep. I know it's a stupid thing to say, but it doesn't. It doesn't track my workouts, okay. Um the the it doesn't keep time perfectly because sometimes I forget to wind it as much, and then I sometimes I notice I think it like runs a couple seconds behind. Um like even right now, yeah, it's about one minute off off what's on my uh on my laptop. It just kind of had me thinking about that. Same thing with so I I start talking to Ross about this, my boss, and Ross was talking about how he has a um one of those solar-powered citizen eco drives, and he's like, Yeah, it's really nice. I leave it in the my window, and like it, you know, gets like charged by the sun. But he's like, it's too nice, and like I can't wear it when I work out, or I don't wear it when I work out, and it's like a little bit too nice for me to wear like you know, casually, so I just don't end up wearing it ever. And he's like, even when I go to like trade shows, sometimes I forget, and then it's like I don't I wear it one time during the entire year, and I've always had this opinion about wearables, if you will, that things are made wearables are made to be worn, you know. That's how I am with sneakers, and what I've kind of been contemplating is when I buy my sneakers, I sort of tell myself, oh, it's an investment. But the truth is, is it an investment if I would never sell them? Because as soon as I get them, I I put them on my feet and I wear them out, and uh I don't keep the boxes, even though you're supposed to if you want to sell them, and like I immediately am like like uh there's no value in them. And this watch, it's like, oh, like this is uh an investment, but is it an investment if I would never sell it? It's kind of an interesting kind of like um thought experiment, and the answer is I don't know, I would never sell this. But then I had the conversation, this watch, then I had the conversation with my brothers about what if it was worth a little bit more money, would I be willing to sell it? But not like enough that's life-changing. What if it was worth $1,200? $1,200 is a pretty decent amount of money, you know? Like maybe I would take it and like, you know, I could uh whatever, fix up part of my house with it. But it's also like, man, I'd have to let it go. And that would be really uh that'd be really hard. I've I sometimes you guys as jewelers probably have to experience that when people bring in something and it's like the sentiment of it is just there's a certain kind of it lets it makes it hard to let go. I don't know. Okay, well, that's that topic. Something more introspective, the the feeling of smart watches versus mechanical watches. I don't know. It's it's such a such a weird

Stratus Estate Buyers Sponsor Message

SPEAKER_01 18:27

topic. Alright, everybody, we're gonna take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor. This episode is brought to you in part by Stratus Estate Buyers. Partner with Stratus Estate Buyers to host a turnkey buying event that brings new customers through your doors at no cost to you. Their estate buying events are designed specifically for jewelry stores looking to increase foot traffic, create immediate revenue, provide free advertisement featuring your store. They handle the entire process from marketing to on-site evaluations and transactions and follow-up with detailed marketing data to capitalize on long-term value. They invest in targeted marketing in your local market, so like full-page advertisement in newspapers, postcard mailers, social media, that kind of stuff. All branded with your store. This drives qualified customers directly into your showroom and introduces them to your store. During the event, their experienced buyers work directly with your customers in a professional, transparent environment, and they evaluate and purchase jewelry, watches, coins, estate items, all on site, giving customers a safe and convenient place to sell. Best of all, their partnership is designed to be low risk and easy to execute. They bring the buyers, they bring the customers, and they handle the logistics. Email sales at Stratus Estate Buyers.com. That's Stratus S-T-R-A-T-U-S Estate Buyers.com. Or call 888-898-2112 or visit Stratusestate Buyers.com to learn how to book your buying event today. Thanks and back to the show.

Omnichannel Ring Design With iPads

SPEAKER_01 20:04

And we're back. Alright, let's move on. Alright, I've been also doing a lot of thinking about this omni-channel experience that is coming to a lot of stores. We've been working with, uh you know, you've probably been listening to this podcast. We've been talking and integrating and working with a lot of these um vendors that are creating these in-store experiences increasingly, uh, what I'm calling iPad experiences. So these are like to name one easily, CarrotWise. CarrotWise has one that's like a whole experience that lets you build this engagement ring. And what I'm starting to see is just some of the conversations are involve like stores when they're redesigning their store. They're not just maximizing display case size. There's also like they want to have like a little spot at their store where people can have like a one-on-one or a two-on-one, you know, clientele, you know, bespoke experience where they sit there and they have an iPad and maybe they hook it up to a TV so that people can kind of watch on, and they let them sort of pick their ring settings, they can pick their um, you know, the diamond and and have this custom tailored approach. And what was it also, you know, it's an interesting leap because for a long time we've been always saying, Oh, the omnichannel experience is so important, where like you go from online to in-store and in store to online, what does that look like? And from a website perspective, to me, it's about making sure that your products perfectly are mirrored into your store. So if someone pre shops online, they can just add it to their wish list, go in and be like, here you go, this is what I'm looking for. And then the sale is very frictional. But this tailored approach, I think it was with uh the guys at Jeweler OS, um, you know, I th I uh Devin, it was earlier this year, and his uh experience is like it's kind of like going to uh men's warehouse or uh Joseph A bank where you're gonna get a tailored suit or a custom tailored suit. It's not like they are taking a bolt of cloth and they're measuring you everywhere and they're gonna cut the cut the fabric for your body. That's what they do in like Italy, and that that suit's gonna run you ten thousand dollars. But it's like they're gonna tailor this suit and make it so that you pick the interior material and like the measurements are all great, and you can maybe have like a little bit of embroidery on it, and you're gonna have like a little uh you know extra uh pocket square that goes with you a little bit better, and maybe they throw in a an extra you know tie that makes it so that it's you know exactly what you like. And is that a custom suit? Well, the answer is like yes and no. It's custom to you, but it's not like fully custom, if that makes sense. And I think that's kind of where these engagement ring experiences are going, and wedding bands. I mean, we've also seen a lot of experiences coming from a lot of these vendors that have these uh you know experiential ring pickers. And I don't know, I think that that is very interesting and is going to be in more prominent pretty soon is these people that like, oh, you want to build your engagement ring? Yeah, well, hey, come over here, let's like sit down on these sofas. Like, let me pull it up, and you pull it up on your iPad and you know, get a chance to work collaboratively with this uh this uh client. And if it's going well, maybe you have some people from the uh the back room bring you over some like you know, a little whiskey or like a uh little cocktail or maybe if or wine or a um or just water, whatever, something that kind of social lubrication, if you will, keeps them feeling feeling good about it. And that's kind of I think what a lot of people want, a certain subsect of client want. There's certain people that they want to go in, they want to buy something right out the case. Then there are also some people that want to go fully bespoke, and then there are also I think some people that want to shop online and do not want to interact with a human at all. But I think having that little tailored one-on-one or two-on-one approach is a pretty good one. Um, so it's something I've been thinking about. I think that shopping is gonna kind of trend that way, personally. Okay,

Sorting Coins And Avoiding Bad Deals

SPEAKER_01 24:48

and the last one is uh one of the things that was given to me as we cleaned out my uh parents' old stuff is um all these coins. It was really interesting. And I just had a conversation with Justin Van Mater from Stratus Estate Buyers, and he was talking about like, oh you know, like we'll buy uh you know coins and um militaria and all that kind of stuff. It was so funny, is like for a long time I was like, oh, who even has coins? Well, and then I got given these coins, and my mom was like, Oh, just figure out how to like sell them and and we can talk about what we should do with the money afterwards, like maybe we use it for this or or whatever. And I took it and I took some photos of it and fed it in the Chat GPT to see if there was any value in there. And in this bag, uh there was like 50 uh half dollars, you know, uh Kennedy heads, and some of them looked a little bit different. So I started looking at them, and my mom seemed to think that they were all worth a lot. Well, half of them were worth a lot, half of them were not worth, they were worth 50 cents. And it's funny because I took them and I started looking at them, probably half the stack were Kennedy heads, and there are some that might be worth a little bit more, but none of mine were those. And then 50 of them were these Edison heads, and these were made in like the you know 30s and 40s, I think, 40s and 50s maybe. And these had uh are almost solid silver, they're like 90 or 95% silver. So as a result, they're worth like a ton right now. And it's so funny. I took that and I like, oh, these ones are worth something, and these ones are literally worth 50 cents. And now I gotta figure out how do I sell these silver coins and not get ripped off? And it's like, oh my gosh, am I gonna sell them on eBay? And it's like, oh my gosh, I don't want to have to figure that out. I haven't ever sold anything off of eBay. It's like, am I going to sell, like, go there's I know there's a person in like Albany. Albany's like two hours away. Am I gonna drive all the way out there just to sell this stack of coins for like maybe $300, $400? It's like, man, that's kind of a big commitment, and I'm sort of eating into my profits. Uh, so it's just one of those things. After I talked with uh Justin, I was like, oh, I could see why these estate buying events actually work. So just kind of a funny thing and made me sort of laugh about like, oh, I see the use case for these things. So that's my

Wrap-Up And How To Reach Me

SPEAKER_01 27:26

topics. There's five things talking about broaches, talking about the client workshop conversations, talking about the mechanical watch versus smart watch, sort of mental debate, uh, talking about omni-channel in-store, like iPad experiences, and then talking about coins and how I don't know what to do with my coins. If anybody out here just like would be down to like let me send them my coins and you can just like melt them and send them back to me. Um, I'd be interested in that. I don't know how that works, but um, yeah, shoot me a text or uh an email, Michael at punchmark.com. All right, I think that's gonna be where we leave it. Something a little bit looser, a little bit more kind of casual. Sometimes I have these conversations and uh I do a lot of prep for my interviews. And this one is just like here's stuff I've been kicking around that I find interesting. So thought I'd at least um get this recorded and and sent out because I think that this is uh these are the ones I think are really fun as well. All right, thanks. Alright, everybody. Thanks for listening. That's the end of the show. This episode is brought to you by Punchmark and produced and hosted by me, Michael Burpo. This episode was edited by Paul Suarez with music by Ross Cochran. Don't forget to leave us feedback on punchmark.com slash loop. That's L-O-U-P-E. Or leave us a five star rating on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. We'll be back next week, Tuesday, with another episode. Cheers. Bye.