Pay Your Jewelers Well
In a recent open letter to the jewelry retail community, David Geller made a passionate and articulate plea to hire more bench jewelers and pay them better. If you are training to be a jeweler — or interested in becoming a jeweler — there is good money to be made. Your options include working for independent designers, jewelry manufacturers, trade shops, yourself, or jewelry retail stores. There's no doubt that many retailers are paying their jewelers well and marketing the benefits of having an in-house jeweler. But for those jewelry stores who don't seem to understand the power of employing talented, committed, well-paid jewelers, Mr. Geller speaks the truth. The jewelry retail community requires in-house jewelers to remain relevant and interesting to the consumers, and this open letter conveys the reasons why.
Read Mr. Geller's open letter here.
Craftsmanship, artisan products, and value are attributes that consumers care about more than ever. When you are a jeweler, you can deliver those qualities, while doing a job you love. Thank you, Mr. Geller, for your important letter to the industry. The BEaJEWELER crew has printed it and hung it by our desks!
"I’d like to share a few things that I’ve been told and some things learned along the way. Just a few ideas:
"I guess if I could point to one thiinng that has made it possible for me to be successful doing what I love to do, it's that I never give up. I just don't quit. I never put it all away and go home and forget about it. To be self-employed — especially in something like this where you're having to make and market and do so many other things — you really have to live it. It has to be your whole life. You're going to continuously run into things that will try and derail you, whether it's financial, or outside stuff, or you didn't get into a certain show, or whatever it is. But you cannot stop. That's the biggest single thing. You can't stop, and you can't say,
"Here are some of the tips that are rattling around in my head; things I think it's important for future jewelers to know.
There's a whole new measurement system out there — one that is understood by jewelers and not very many others! Halstead Bead recently wrote a blog post about gauges and tempers that lays the whole thing out for you. Read this article and save it. You won't believe how handy it will come in when you're ordering jewelry-making supplies!
If you've worked with wire, then you've probably experienced the sublime frustration of dealing with a length of wire that has become kinked or trying to straighten wire that has come off a coil. Here is a quick tip (from the MJSA archives) that shows you how to straighten wire quickly and effectively.
Many excellent books have been written on how to make jewelry, and of course, we have our favorites. This book, by 
Did you know many professional jewelers are self-taught? We are big fans of formal training programs to become a jeweler, because a good program can speed you along your way and help you overcome the inevitable hurdles in learning a new skill. But if you can't afford a program yet, if you need to wait a bit longer to start a program, or if you just can wait to learn everything you can, you have options!