Pierce Custom Jewelers

by Chip Colandreo

You’ve heard of the Four C’s – Carat, Cut, Color, and Clarity – the basic metrics that determine what makes one diamond or gemstone more or less valuable than another, but savvy jewelry shoppers know that one critically important letter must be added. Call it the One T: Trust.

“This is a trust business,” says Melissa Pierce, a GIA Graduate Gemologist and        co-owner of Pierce Custom Jewelers in Lake Mary. “The value of diamonds and gems varies more now than ever before. Is a diamond lab-grown or mined? Has a gem been heat-treated at the mine or not? Two gems that look identical to the naked eye can have exponentially different values. There is one – and only one – way to know if you’re getting the jewels you’re paying for, and that is to work with a jeweler you trust.”

To find a trustworthy jeweler, Melissa says you don’t need to look much further than the sign above their door.

Pierce Custom Jewelers at Colonial TownPark in Lake Mary proudly bears the name of its owners, Melissa and Master Jeweler Lance Pierce. When it comes to representing the products they sell, Lance and Melissa intentionally give themselves nowhere to hide. Every piece of jewelry that leaves the Pierce Custom Jewelers showroom carries with it the name and reputation of the owners and their team, and every customer with whom they interact can testify to the trustworthiness of Pierce Custom Jewelers.

Lance puts his stamp – literally – on his custom jewelry in another way, as well. Every piece he designs and creates in-house at Pierce Custom Jewelers bears a tiny emblem of his initials, always tucked away where it won’t be seen by the casual observer. For Lance, it’s a tangible reminder to both the customer and to himself that he stands behind the piece’s quality and craftsmanship personally.

Show, Don’t Tell

In a world where diamonds can be ordered together with dish soap on Amazon, how is a shopper to know what makes one gem a find and another a fraud? Lance and Melissa can certainly tell you, and based on the decades they’ve spent building and cultivating their reputations in the jewelry business, you should believe them. But they’re also happy to let each customer see, with their own eyes, what separates the sparkly wheat from the chaff.

The Pierce Custom Jewelers showroom features a state-of-the-art gemological microscope connected to a large monitor. Using the setup, Melissa or Lance can take customers inside the stones they’re buying to see the microscopic evidence of what makes a diamond or gem exceptionally valuable  (or not).

“Trust is built on the idea that you don’t have to take our word for it,” Melissa says. “When we evaluate or appraise a gemstone, we can prove what we say. You can see it. We can show it to you. It’s not just about removing guesswork, it’s about removing doubt. So many of the items we sell are life-pieces. Their value has nothing to do with what the client could sell it for one day. Instead, the customer will know, every time they look down at their beautiful jewelry, that it is worth exactly what they think it is worth. It is special. They don’t just have to believe it’s special. They know it’s special. That’s the most valuable thing of all.”