You would think that folks who work around the beautiful products at Jewelry Television would wear a bunch of jewelry themselves, wouldn’t you? But they don’t.
In fact, they only are allowed to wear one piece of jewelry when they come to work — and it has to be the same piece every day. And a photo of that piece is placed on the back of their name badge — so it can be checked by security as they enter and leave their work posts.
This is just one of the tidbits I picked up when a group from the Executive Women’s Association took a field trip to Jewelry Television recently. Here are some other things we heard:
- When looking at colored gemstones, the lighter colored ones usually are less expensive than the darker colored ones. That’s why Shawn O’Sullivan, the grader at Jewelery Television, likes to joke, “Add more color to your wife!”
- The gemstone tanzanite is becoming so rare that sometime during our lifetimes, it no longer will be available. Already the really deep blue tanzanite is very rare.
- There are more kinds of gemstones today than in the past. For instance, there are three kinds of blue topaz.
- Probably because of the economy, the sales of gold jewelry are going down while the sales of silver jewelry, which is less expensive, are going up.
- Jewelry Television, started in Knoxville in 1993, is the only network that sells jewelry and gemstones 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is number four in television sales and is number one in the world for the sale of loose gemstones.
- The distribution facility at 9600 Parkside Drive ships out between 20,000 and 25,000 packages every day, mostly by Federal Express.
- Jewelry Television employs about 1,200 people in Knoxville and 100 more in Thailand. It reaches 85 million homes.
One of my all-time favorite EWA events!