They Don’t Make ‘em Like That Anymore

While I’m certainly proud to be an island home owner, for over 16 years it has become a kind of a bitter sweet experience. In my 16 years young home I have had to replace the following things…all originally purchased brand new:

1. Three washing machines and two dryers (my current dryer is making funny noises!)
2. Four water heaters.
3. Three refrigerators (one Samsung used for target practice!)                                                                                  
4. Three microwave/convection ovens.
5. Three garbage disposals.
6. Three outside air conditioning units (full replacements).
7. Three pool pumps.
8. Two garage door openers.

You may be wondering if I paid for warranties on the items above, on most I did, but they all met their demise mere hours or weeks after the warranty also expired. 

Am I the only one with such horrible luck with household appliances???? I have a 35-year-old refrigerator in my two-car garage, of all places, and that runs like a charm! What the heck is going on here?

It’s apparently happening to everything we consumers buy nowadays – it’s junk and nothing lasts…this even applies to upper end stuff. I’m not a miser, and while I may not purchase the top-of-the-line stuff all the time, I don’t buy the low-end models either. And I wind up with the same miserable performances. 

Complaining or getting satisfaction from the manufacturers is near impossible. You never get to complain to a breathing human being and if you do it’s someone from another country with no grasp of the English language or of the #%@ appliance in question (I swear they do that on purpose to further infuriate you).

I face the same dilemma in the jewelry business; hardly anything is made like it was in the good old days and those days were not all that long ago. Good quality jewelry is hard to come by and I must be diligent in inspecting every single thing I purchase and then sell to the public. I recently found out my simple 14karat gold ball earrings had hollow posts, which rendered the earring useless after wearing it a few times. How much money did this company save by doing something so inane? I have been refusing so many jewelry repairs simply because you can’t repair it. When a chain or earring weighs the same as a mosquito’s eyelash, trust me, using a torch or laser will make the piece blow up or disintegrate.

Even years ago, jewelry was made on the hollow side. Most earrings you bought decades ago were hollow for comfort, but they were a heavy hollow - I could actually work on them. Today for most earrings it’s near impossible. 

I have been repairing fine and not so fine jewelry for over a half century - yeah that’s a long time to be doing anything. On the other hand, my right-hand man, my son Andrew, has been on the bench for over fifteen years now and the challenges I throw at him result in miraculous impossible repairs I would now personally refuse. He accomplishes so many basket cases; it makes me more than proud.

“Why did my jewelry break?”  a constant question I have to answer. My answer should be “because you didn’t buy it from me!” Truth of the matter is - it’s true - 99 % of all my incoming repair work was bought elsewhere. I’m diligent in not selling a future headache. I’m not perfect - sometimes I find out later a piece of jewelry does not perform but I will make it right, replace it or refund the customer’s money. Judging by what I hear when I tell folks to bring it back where they purchased it - especially when it was a recent Christmas gift and it fell apart in January - I guess I’m the only one around these parts who stands behind what I sell.

All stuff breaks, that’s life…but why does it happen so often to me?

Richard Alan is a designer /goldsmith and owner of the Harbor Goldsmith, Marco’s Island Jeweler since 1994. He welcomes your questions and comments about “All That Glitters.” www.harborgoldsmith.com.