I am not sure how or why this happens. A name, place or thing jogs my memory of person, event or experience. This time it’s a person I haven’t thought about for perhaps 35 years. And the last time I saw him I was selling pens to collect money for Boy Scouts. Not a terribly memorable experience overall. Sales were good but the margins were slim and I didn’t order quite enough pens to stretch out those profits.
Marshall rented most of the 7th floor of the Maller’s Building (mentioned here previously going back to 2014) or it seemed like it. Short of the now franchise street level “diamond experts” it was the largest jewelry I had ever been in. My father’s store was on the 3rd floor and despite being on the same floor as the restaurant in the building, I figured the higher up you were in the building the more prestigious and likely the higher the rent. I had no basis for this. There was a 13th floor in that building as well and that floor always seem to full of stores of jewelers, watchmakers and diamond setters.
When I thought about Marshall a few weeks ago, naturally I googled his name and came up with an article from the Chicago Tribune from nearly 18 years ago (see: Jeweler’s Row) in addition to a simple obituary.
From what I recall, the author of the piece captured Marshall well. For diamond brokers at Building 5, trays of diamonds, loose stones and those carefully wrapped in papers were the tools of the trade. The difference between an expensive diamond and a very expensive diamond was often very minor and required a trained eye like Marshall or my father had.
I don’t know what made me think of Marshall now other than his passion. Everything he did he did with a fervent style. Everyone knew Marshall and Marshall knew everyone. My father would often go to see Marshall in his office set back in his corner empire of the 7th floor to haggle over “stones” and while my father was a master haggler, Marshall usually seemed to have more leverage. He seemed to know more, understand more, make predictions about what the market would do, what kind of person might want to buy a particular stone or try to sell it on commission. For gold and gold jewelry my father would come out on top but for diamonds it was Marshall’s passion that I think reminded me of him after hearing “Marshall” for the first time in a while. I thought of Marshall Field’s, then downtown Chicago and of course The Den of Thieves, four years after writing about it. Little pieces of the earth mined from Africa or Russia and cut by hand in Israel now sitting loose in a tray as the “L” rattles by out the window.
While traders at the Chicago Board of Trade, a few blocks from Building 5, were dealing in November pork bellies or October wheat, guys like Marshall were trading something far smaller with its own market conditions. A combination of carat, color, clarity and cut. All of them slightly different. Not quite like trading 50,000 pork belly futures or 50,000 bushels of a future crop, but dealing in another market altogether.
His jewelry store also had several fish tanks, in the wall, under tables and between sections of the store. All kinds of fish, fresh and saltwater. I appreciated the motion of pumps and aerators and the colorful fish, rocks and coral. If there was a delivery to be made to “7” I had no problem checking in on the fish.
Seeing those tanks spurred me into getting my own and within a year I had 10-, 20-, 29- and 30-gallon tanks. I started with guppies and worked my way up to more expensive varieties. Eventually I specialized in African cichlids, a breed known for their variety, activity level and hardiness despite their “exotic nature”. Marshall also had African cichlids. Cleaning the tanks would take hours every other week and within a few years I sold what fish I could back to the pet store and the rest to other tropical fish enthusiasts and tried to sell the tanks and equipment. I am sure Marshall had someone maintain his tanks but nonetheless he was passionate about the right combination of fish in the right tank with the right conditions.
Marshall kept the fish he would tell me because he appreciated that all the fish were slightly different, like diamonds and slightly unique.
When I sold him the last of my pens (selling out of my inventory by the 7th floor), I remember him asking me what I was interested in. I told him math and science. Probably not jewelry (at least not retail). He told me that was OK and to just be passionate about what you do.
Good advice from a diamond salesman.
