When Christie Maycock opened Christie’s Jewelers at 215 E. Hutchison St., San Marcos, in 2010, she said it was the realization of a dream she had since she was a child turning beads and wire into jewelry while waiting for her mother to finish grading her students’ papers.
It has not exactly been a smooth five years of business, Maycock said. Soon after the business opened, the city of San Marcos began a major reconstruction project downtown that often made accessing Maycock’s store difficult. In March 2013 Christie’s Jewelers was robbed, and the thieves made off with about $70,000 of merchandise.
“We’ve been through the fire and earned our stripes with the construction and the burglary and all that,” Maycock said. “We were really thankful that we didn’t have any customers suffer any losses. I would be inconsolable if something precious had been taken that belonged to a customer.”
In November, Christie’s moved to 206 N. LBJ Drive, San Marcos. The new location has improved security, and Maycock hopes being located on one of the primary retail corridors in the city will increase the store’s foot traffic.
Maycock said the store is also going to return to its roots: celebrating the artistry of handmade jewelry. At the previous location Maycock said the store began to cater to those seeking a lower price point for their jewelry. Maycock said she wants to refocus on working with precious metals—primarily gold and sterling silver.
In October, Maycock invested in a 3-D printer that will allow her and jeweler Bob Kardow to make mockups of customers’ jewelry. If a customer decides he or she would like an engagement ring with a certain stone cut and setting, using the printer, a scale wax replica of a ring can be produced in a matter of hours. Previously that would have taken weeks, Kardow said.
“We want to make sure people understand the value of what we’re doing,” Maycock said. “We don’t want to cheapen our products with anything that’s inexpensive.”
A basic custom-made ring of 18-karat gold costs about $1,800, Maycock said. More complex designs will cost more, but Maycock said the 3-D printing software can dramatically reduce prices from what customers would otherwise be paying.
In addition to rings, Maycock and Kardow can also produce custom pendants with reliefs printed on them.
Maycock said she believes the new machine will make high-end jewelry more accessible to the average shopper. Not only will it allow Christie’s to offer more competitive prices, but the new machine will pull back the curtain on what Maycock said can be a mysterious process to many of her customers.
“People tend to think there is a lot of magic in jewelry,” she said. “But really it’s all mechanics. It’s about experience, skill and tools. We’ve gotten to the point where we’ve got all of it.”
