[btn]By Joshua Delauder[/btn]
Schmitt Jewelers has opened a second location at 44th Street and Camelback Road, which continues the family tradition.

Tom Schmitt said this new location, which opened on Oct. 1, was a good opportunity. “It’s a great location with a neighborhood very similar to North Central,” he said.

 Brothers Tom (left) and Tim Schmitt, along with their wives Erin (left) and Ginnie, continue the tradition of selling fine jewelry established by their parents, Larry and Marie Schmitt (photo by Megan Schmitt).

Brothers Tom (left) and Tim Schmitt, along with their wives Erin (left) and Ginnie, continue the tradition of selling fine jewelry established by their parents, Larry and Marie Schmitt (photo by Megan Schmitt).

Erin Schmitt, Tom’s wife, said that North Central and Arcadia are similar because there are second and third generations living in the community.

“We hope to be a vital part of the community,” she added.

Erin said that the new place is a little smaller than their store at 7th Street and Glendale Avenue but it will still have custom designs available.

“At the new location, we do a lot of custom work and we wanted our customers to be able to see the work being done,” she said. “Our shop is very visible from the sales floor.”

Erin added that they did a lot of renovation work on the new store. “We really took it back to studs; we are so excited about it.”

Schmitt Jewelers has been in business since 1970, when Larry and Marie Schmitt founded it. The original location was at 16th Street and Bethany Home Road.

In 2003, they moved to the current location at 7th Street and Glendale Avenue. After 30 years, the jewelry store now includes three generations of Schmitts.

“My daughter works with us now and my nephew worked with us last year,” Erin said.

During their time in the business, the Schmitt family has had many customers. Tom said they have multi-generation customers come in.

“That’s the biggest part of what we do. We have grandparents, and parents and children. We’ve been lucky to have customers from multiple generations,” he said.

Besides just the family working there, Erin said they have 19 employees working in different departments as well.

“We have six goldsmiths, we have someone who does our computer-automated designs, we have a full time appraiser, a watchmaker, and salespeople,” she explains.

Erin pointed out that they even have their appraiser’s son working for them now, which adds another family generation to their business.

Tom and Erin both said they owe a lot of their family business success to their customers and to the neighborhoods in which they do business.

“We have had such amazing support, always from the community,” Erin said.

“It’s a fun business to be in. You get to help people celebrate big occasions,” Tom added.

The new store is located at 4402 E. Camelback Road. Hours are 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. The North Central store is located at 539 E. Glendale Ave. For more information, call 602-840-1144 (Arcadia) or 602-279-1300 (North Central) or visit www.schmittjewelers.com.

Editor’s Note: Joshua Delauder is a journalism student at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

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