Jewelry of the World #3 Part 1 Italia

March 14, 2021

Jewelry of the World #3 Italia

An Italy Story

My wife and I have been selling Sterling Silver (and Gold) Jewelry for over 30 years. In all that time, we restricted our purchasing to wholesalers usually who visited us in Los Angeles a couple of times every year and Vegas as well.

We always wanted to climb up the "food chain" to actual Factories and in 2000 we started to do just that. We went first to Hong Kong Jewelry Shows, and there we were exposed to many more wholesalers as well as some Factory Direct Companies.

Normally when a Company does this they opt out of "retail" and become Wholesalers themselves. Not us. We had and have so many customers who love our Jewelry and us, that we just decided to climb the food chain to the actual manufacturers and then pass the better pricing on to our beloved customers.

When we first started to sell on Amazon in 2014, we needed to look at volumes of sales and decided to limit our sales to Chains. The reason for this is that women are always breaking their chains and they can be a bit expensive to replace.

The second decision is one that separated us from EVERY OTHER SELLER OF ANY KIND OF JEWELRY IN THE WORLD. And that was to offer a LIFETIME GUARANTEE on all of our Sterling Silver Chains. We do not advertise this on our website, but we do a little on Amazon. (NOTE: this only applies to our Silver Chains, not the rest of our Jewelry)

Anyway, for the first time in our 30 plus year history, we decided to find the best Factories in Italy and make a deal directly with them, as we had done for other Jewelry in China and Hong Kong as well as Bangkok and Bali among other countries. (see other editions in this series).

Our Trip to Italy

So in 2018, we planned a trip to Italy during the Vicenza Oro Jewelry Show. We started out in Venecia (Venice) and rented a car. WOW Venice, what a City! So many shops and so many Cathedrals we had never seen.

From there, we drove to the Abano Ritz Resort near Padova Italy. From there, daily for three days, we drove back and forth to Vicenza, where the Jewelry Show was being held. While there we researched all the Factories presenting their wares and decided we liked 5 of them. Most of the 5 were located in the Tuscan Hills area of Italy.

We were able to visit an actual Castle, and we went to Verona, the famed home of Romeo and Juliette. We even visited the famed balcony. Also, while in Verona we saw what we thought to be something like the Roman Coliseum, and it was called the Arena. Amazing!

Here is a picture of the Varona Arena.

Then we were off to Florence and the Churches there were even more impressive if that is even possible.

From Florence, we went to Sienna and that was a CRAZY city! It was small and completely built on cliffs and on top of a hill or mountain. WOW. Fortunately, we were able to stay a few miles away in an antique resort in the Countryside named Borgo San Luigi. Simply amazing.