When Does No…Mean No?

Is it me, or is it that recent society is having trouble comprehending the word…NO? So many times during my illustrious career in the jewelry business, I have always felt a sense of regret after telling a customer no, I can’t or no, I won’t do a particular thing. Thinking back, some requests were downright ridiculous, such as melting or crushing small diamonds to make a larger one. (For those of you who think that is possible, it’s not!) Or that I could be bringing a dilapidated watch with a rusted internal movement back to life by simply replacing the battery, or why I can’t squeeze an 8.00 mm. two-carat diamond into a 4.00mm. quarter carat ring mounting. In fact, too many impossibilities over the decades to mention here.

Usually, when incoming jewelry repairs are accepted, they are placed in small manila envelopes, where they end up in the repair box out back in my workshop. A goldsmith never knows what can of worms will slide out of an envelope. As a young bench jeweler in Boston, I prided myself that there were very few things I came across that I could not repair properly.

In 1994, I moved from a Boston suburb to paradise, aka Marco Island, and that’s when things showing up at the bench got very weird. The broken articles that used to slide out of small manila job envelopes were now in large freezer bags. The articles to be repaired ranged from Gucci handbag hardware, Irish tap shoes, assorted handgun or rifle parts, and once, a motherboard to a pinball machine, lawn ornaments, faucets to electric car keys, and garage remotes or electrical fixtures, not to mention untold amounts of porcelain figurine knick-knacks. Oh look, here’s a gentleman wheeling in a brass floor lamp in a Beal’s shopping cart claiming it's solid gold! Whaaaat?

It’s no wonder I’m behind on my jewelry repairs when I’m dealing with folks who think I’m the island fix-it-all handyman.

My new 2025 shop vocabulary now includes the words “I’m sorry we don’t repair or do that!” That is the point of my column because it never ends there. “Yes, I understand you don’t…but could you just do it!” I spent the better part of an hour saying no to a person who wanted to sell me a cheap, beat-up and broken wristwatch, telling me he would not leave until I bought it. I had to walk away and leave him talking to himself.

To make matters worse, all due to the high cost of gold (and I know my daughter Lindsay has harped on this subject), the new wave of impossibly hollow and thin internet-purchased gold jewelry has what little hair I have on end. This stuff has the word NO as a common phrase across the counter lately. We can’t solder it, weld it, or, heaven forbid, cement it together without it looking worse than it arrived. I simply stopped accepting this stuff.

The obvious replies to no are “Why not?”

“But can’t you do this or that?” “If I had the tools, I could do it myself!“ “So are you telling me you don’t have the skill?” “Guess I’ll bring it somewhere else!” “Please, my deceased Grandmother gave it to me!”

Once, someone told me a gold-plated brass lion ring that could not be sized once belonged to Elvis himself!

Ever try nailing Jell-O to a tree, or putting toothpaste back in the tube? You have a better chance accomplishing these tasks than me repairing a hollow chain that weighs a tenth of a gram.

One of my least favorite things is when someone brings in a strand of knotted pearls that broke in the middle, and they refuse to understand the whole strand has to be restrung. “Can’t you just tie a knot?” NO! You ever tie a knot with each end being only one-tenth of a millimeter?

Then there is the matter of sentimental but hopelessly worthless family heirloom costume jewelry. Most of the time, it’s a simple thing; add a ring here, a new catch there, or a drop of glue to replace a missing rhinestone, easy peasy. If there is more to it, costume jewelry is way more difficult to repair than precious metal jewelry. In a nutshell, it is usually cheap plated slush lead-based metal with glued-in glass stones, something that is not heat or torch-friendly. If I spend an hour meticulously repairing it and charge a measly ten dollars or worse, twenty, I hear them holler “highway robbery.”

I remember an unprofitable marketing ploy my uncle and mentor used decades ago to prevent unruly costume jewelry comebacks. When he had a lull in the summer months, he would “patch together” the impossible costume jewelry basket cases to the best of his ability; sometimes it could take hours, and it was always an improvement of its former self and once again wearable. He’d call the customer to come and pick it up and mention it was no charge. I questioned why there was no charge? He simply said that it sharpened his skills and was better than sitting around doing nothing. He knew there was absolutely no way that piece of junk would stay in one piece for any amount of time, and even though it looks great now, the customer can’t complain when it does fall apart if there was no charge!

I have done the same thing over the years more times than I can count; only my charitable contribution repair also comes with the “Taillight guarantee,” meaning when your taillights are out of sight leaving the parking lot, so is your guarantee!