Jewel Gallery — Local services in El Paso

The two stars I am giving The Jewel Gallery are "good" stars. The staff is amazing. Very kind and welcoming and they make sure that you have a good experience during your visit. The work on the watch I entrusted them...not so good. I took my Vostok Komandirskie 030787 for a seconds hand repair. First, communication was pretty bad. "Will call you in a couple of days". After a week and a half I had to called them. The estimate was not ready. "Will give you the estimate in a couple of days". Nothing. I had to text them. After getting the estimate and agreeing to it, the time to pick up the watch came. The crystal was extremely scratched. Now vostoks have an acrylic crystal, a little more prone to scratching, but fairly easy to repair (a little polywatch did the trick). But the fact that so little care was put into it was very disappointing. Also there was some dust inside the dial, which was not there when I left it for the repair. A gentleman came out (remember how I said the staff was great, he wasn't). He explained (in a very condescending tone) that the dust was not their fault, since they did not remove the crystal for the repair, and didn't even cared to acknowledge the severe scratching of the crystal. I went back home, wore the watch for the rest of the day. The rotor inside the movement was left loose. I fixed it myself. No big deal. In all honesty, they offered a cleaning of the watch (though I never was told if they were going to cover it). But after seeing the state their watchmaker left the crystal in, I refused. I waited a couple of weeks to write this review to make sure I was not acting in the heat...

I was looking to have a custom engagement ring put together, and went to multiple places looking for someone that I felt I could trust to get such an important job done. Everyone talked a good game at first, but I found little follow through from anyone (including local jewelers, as well as the “name you know” chains)... Only one truly showed up for the big game - Jewel Gallery! Alejandra was amazing, looking for what was ultimately an almost impossible request for one of the stones, but knowing I was on a timetable, she pushed through insane winter storms, lack of inventory nationwide, and an almost “unreasonable” request on my end, and made it happen! She kept me in the loop every step of the way. Linda (one of the owners) stepped in personally when needed to make sure I got what I needed, when I needed it, and was always so excited to be a part of making this momentous occasion as special as possible. Everyone was so friendly and helpful, I couldn’t ask for anything more!

Come to find out, they have done a tremendous amount of work for my mother on some very old and complicated jewelry to some new items she got from them... In fact, I think my mother’s exact words were. “You would have been an idiot if you had gone anywhere else!” Well, without a doubt,she was right! Thank you Jewel Gallery, especially Alejandra and Linda! You made one of the most special days of my life even better and easier... Oh, and...

True awful Story: I had a ring that I needed to know if the stones where real diamonds and the metal was gold. I took the ring to this jewelry, a woman checked tested it and it came positive on the diamonds, and told me that no test was needed on the metal because no-one would put diamonds on a metal that was not gold (because of the 14k gold stamp). One lady took it from me and steamed it, and gave me a little purple bag in which she advise me to put the ring. They asked me if i was going to sell it, "Because it is beautiful!" they said. I i was going to sell it and decided to give it to my mother. When we came all excited back again in a couple of days, we were told they were not diamonds. I told the man that if I were to sell it, i could have seen myself facing a serious problem. "You need to train your personnel better!" I said. I asked him that if the metal was gold and he said, "Yes it is!" so I went to another place to check the ring and they said the stones were not diamonds and the "Gold" was not gold. Be careful guys, this guys really need to loose...