Peninsula Small Business Talk

For new members, Georgie Gleim introduced her business Gleim the Jeweler as a third-generation, family-owned business.  She can’t quite beat Robin Azevedo, McRoskey Mattress Company at 150 years, but Gleim the Jeweler was started by her grandfather on April 1, 1931.  While she at one time had three store locations, they have consolidated and now have one store at Stanford Mall and a business office in downtown Palo Alto.  They are one of the original tenants of Stanford Mall and she says that this has proven to be a great location for them.

Georgie is proud to be a member of the American Gemological Society (AGS).  She says that this group sets the standards for the industry.  You must re-earn your membership at the AGS each year by passing a test that requires updated training in gems and business ethics.  Only the upper echelon of jewelers are members of the AGS.  Both her father and Georgie have been President of the AGS.  Georgie is currently the chair of another industry society, Jewelers of America.

She commented that having a long history and a great reputation is important in the jewelry business, which is still run on trust and a handshake in many cases.  It is not unusual for a vendor to send her items worth $10,000 and up based on trust.

In addition to retail sales, Gleim the Jeweler offers a number of services.  They can repair jewelry and have a goldsmith on the premises (an increasingly rare phenomenon).  They will repair jewelry that was not purchased from them and get many referrals from their Stanford neighbor, Tiffany.  They also do custom work – Georgie noted that their website shows examples of some of the custom pieces their goldsmith has created.  They have a watchmaker who can change batteries although they do send out watches for more involved repair work.  They do all kinds of appraisals.

A big part of their business is in estate and antique jewelry.  Estate jewelry is basically pre-owned jewelry and may be only a few years old.  There are a lot of good values in estate jewelry and it is a fun part of the business because of the many unusual pieces that they get in.  For the most part, estate jewelry is sold on consignment, resulting in a better profit for the client and less risk for the store.  Recently they sold a piece of estate jewelry that had over 20 karats in diamonds.

They also have a large focus on colored gemstones.  They just had a trunk show focusing on The Gleim Collection, featuring diamonds, pearls, and colored gemstones set in gold and platinum.  In addition to colored gemstones, they are also an authorized Rolex dealer.

Tags: Gleim the Jeweler, McRoskey Mattress Company

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 11th, 2012 at 11:00 am and is filed under Member Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.