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CHAPTER IX
OVER THE COUNTER
Since diamonds
comprise at least one-third of their entire sales business, it is
important to take a look at the retail jewelry stores and see what is
going on behind and in front of their counters.
In
the fall of 1941 there were 14,559 jewelry stores in the United States,
stores of every description: austere cash stores, credit or installment
houses, chain stores, jewelry sections of department stores, and even
diamond departments of mail-order houses. You can take the oldest
jewelry store in your home town and almost invariably find that its
history mirrors the history of the town itself. Usually the present
proprietor is a direct blood descendant of the original
founder—something that rarely can be said about newspaper proprietors,
department store proprietors, and others.
In
New York, for instance, there are a number of great jewelry houses with
a long history that paces the story of the community. Oldest, perhaps,
and typical of the slow uptown movement of Manhattan business over the
decades, is Black. Starr & Gorham (once known as Black, Starr &
Frost-Gorham), which dates back to 1810. One day in that year, while
Napoleon still ruled in France, the ladies of fashion settled their
chic Empire gowns and long scarves in their carriages and drove to a
new shop at 166 Broadway to inspect the offerings of one Isaac
Marquand. Money was
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