Columnist Muriel Stevens: Get to know Jack at Tower of Jewels

Wednesday, March 22, 2000 | 9:43 a.m.

Muriel Stevens' shopping column appears Wednesdays. Her dining column appears Fridays. Reach her at muriel@vegas.com or 259-4080.

At 6:30 a.m. on a Monday morning Tower of Jewels founder Jack Weinstein was already at his desk. He was not alone. Key members of the TJ staff were at their desks, too. By 7:30 a.m. other staff members were appearing. First order of the day? To refill the showcases with the glittering merchandise that is removed to the massive safes each night; no easy task in a store the size of Tower of Jewels' flagship store on East Sahara.

It's a far cry from the first Tower of Jewels that opened in 1960 on downtown's Fremont Street and made Jack's reputation. The value and service are still the same.

Jack has been in the jewelry business since he started as a teenager at the family owned jewelry store in Detroit. Now, more than five decades later, he still loves the business.

It's been that way since the beginning. In the time-honored way to learn, he started as a polisher, graduated to the work bench and then to sales. Always ambitious, he convinced his reluctant bosses, his older brothers, to send him abroad to buy diamonds, still the heart of his business. He sold every piece!

When I walked into his office the jewelry maven was working on new diamond ring designs. At least 20 new pieces incorporating diamonds and other precious stones are created each week. "Never before," said Jack, "has the demand been so great for five- to six-carat diamonds." This past month the jovial jeweler has sold more diamonds in these sizes than in all the years he's been in business.

Of course, diamonds aren't the only specialty here. There's every kind of adornment one can imagine at every price level. As a manufacturing jeweler, TJ has an edge, not only manufacturing jewelry for its own stores, but for at least 100 other jewelry retailers around the country as well.

The manufacturing design center on East Sahara (20,000 square feet) is, according to Jack, the largest facility of its kind in Las Vegas. The staff includes 27 premium artisans -- polishers, wax mold experts, casters and a foreman who oversees the work of these experts. Watch them at work through the glass windows. It's fascinating. They also do all of the repairs.

Among the many features of TJ is the "direct to the customer" prices as well as custom jewelry designs at no extra cost (create your own design), affordable financing options, an interest-free layaway program, free watch batteries, a VIP Club that gives merchandise rebate certificates on purchases, and VIP member-only specials.

Additional Tower of Jewels stores can be found on the west side at Rainbow, in Green Valley, at Bally's and at Harrah's. All of the stores, including the hotel shops, charge the same low prices. "I've never sold anything at full price in my life," Jack says. With such a policy it's no wonder his customers consider him a dear friend.

Thanks, dear readers: Thanks a bunch to all of you who called and wrote telling me where in Las Vegas I could find those popular stick-on lights; and to those of you who shared your own airline stories. As one reader said, "thanks for giving me the opportunity to vent."