Issue Ten

“You know what Diamonds are?
I’ve Rubies–live the Evening Blood–
And Topaz–like the star!"
        –Emily Dickinson

    In the late 1930’s Bob Grelick, joined the first two letters of his given name with the first two letters of his wife Mille’s name, affectionately registering the family business under the acronym BOMI.  At BOMI, Bob Grelick sold original ball point pens for $14 a piece.  These pens, invented by Hungarian journalist Laszlo Biro, were filled with newspaper ink, and they could write for an entire year without refilling.  Grelick became a successful entrepreneur, also selling electric razors, Spidel watches, and jewelry in the well appointed Ellicot Square building in downtown Buffalo, NY.
    In 1938 Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, of the De Beers mining cartel, sent his 29 year old son Harry from Johannesburg, South Africa, to New York.  Harry was charged with securing the family’s fortunes, to ensure its success in perpetuity.  He met with the N. W. Ayer advertising agency and a brilliant campaign was developed to create a perpetual market for the family’s principle interest–diamonds.  They connected the diamond to the idea of romantic love, using it as a catalyst for new traditions and rituals that symbolize our commitments to one another.  In 1947, Frances Gerety, a copywriter at Ayer, came up with the slogan “A diamond is forever.” 
    Back at BOMI, when one of Bob Grelick’s associates fell ill, his son Gary, a recent college graduate, filled in.  To help Gary get his feet wet in the jewelry business his father gave him $10,000 to buy gemstones overseas.  Gary never looked back.  He is the current owner of BOMI, which now sells high end precious jewelry exclusively.
    Gary Grelick is as colorful as the gems that he buys and sells.  Take a good look at the next guy you see whizzing by you on a Harley Davidson motorcycle, it might be Grelick, wearing one of his trademark pair of colored eyeglasses.  These days Grelick lives a decidedly more polished lifestyle than his football loving father, who was content at the end of a day’s work to sit down and read the newspaper.  When Gary’s not wearing monogrammed shirts, traveling on the PGA tour, or buying stones in exotic locales, he splits his time between Boca Raton, Florida and Buffalo, New York.
    Surprisingly, the exterior façade of BOMI’s current building in Snyder, NY, does not include a sign that specifies what is sold inside.  The interior is plush and comfortable, a sanctuary replete with leather sofas, soft music and a spectacular fire of diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds in ice green display cases.
    Bomi has built a unique business that spans the United States and Europe.  Many of their customers come from outside of the region.  Grelick defines his competition by the names Louis Comfort Tiffany and Louis-Francois Cartier.  He spends most of his time simply making conversation; and says that “Personal connections are ninety percent of the business.”  His customers are interested in the quality of goods that he represents, and the price point at which he provides them.
    Grelick has leveraged his love of sports, developing special relationships with the PGA Tour, the European PGA Tour, and the NFL.  Celebrity golfers have been known to stop by the showroom if they’re competing nearby at the Canadian Open.  Professional athletes often call Grelick to tell him what kind of jewelry their wives like, and he and his staff design exclusive pieces for them.
    BOMI buys most of their gems, some rough, but mostly finished, in Hong Kong, Antwerp, Srilanka, Mumbai, Tel Aviv and Bangkok.  He acknowledges that it has been much more difficult to travel with ease since September 11th, given the strict changes in security regulations.  Yet the market continues to grow.  Even he is amazed at how “the prices have escalated, almost beyond belief.”
    Howard Hilfstein, Grelick’s main buyer, adds that “In today’s world there are a lot of diamond dealers.  We are all looking for the same items and it becomes more competitive.  Diamonds are being used in countries that never used diamonds before.  China is an evolving market.  As demand grows for a particular quality we try to stay one foot ahead.”  BOMI does not deal in industrial grade diamonds.
    Grelick explains that is a “different business.”  and continues, “The stones get split up at birth, like the black sheep of the family–they sell those in pounds–we sell in mega ounces.”
    Hilfstein really enjoys buying gemstones; he loves the thrill of the hunt. “To be able to buy things of beauty and value and things that make people happy is pretty exciting.”  He laughingly warns, “you lose your appreciation of value sometimes, you have a warped sense, but not of beauty.”  He teases about the days he says to himself, “I only spent $300,000 today!”  He adds “Nobody is ever disappointed in quality.  If you specialize in selling low quality a lot of people could be disillusioned or unhappy.  When you’re selling quality it’s very unusual that somebody looks back and says, boy, I really made a mistake, I should have bought something a little bit lower end.” 
    Hilfstein concentrates on timeless, not trendy pieces; nevertheless he is always aware of what is stylish and fashionable.  He recognizes that his purchases “differentiate you from the next person.”  “I look at people and see what they’re wearing.” Given that BOMI sells all over the country he is especially attentive when he’s traveling in “fashion forward” locations like Italy, where people wear more daring jewelry.  Hilfstein understands that he is selling romance, the luxury, the elite status, the transportable wealth, the symbolic meaning. 
    It’s a fast paced business and BOMI thrives on an organizational structure that manager Michael Killian concedes is “not big on hierarchies.”  According to Hilfstein “everybody in the business wears more than one hat.”  The folks who work at BOMI are highly skilled, some with degrees from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA).  They all hand pick stones for special order work, are involved in sales, have clients that they build relationships with, can do repairs, sizing, calibrating, sorting, appraisals, etc.  Nevertheless these multi-tasker’s find the design work the most rewarding.  They craft original models, fabricate and manufacture on site. 
    John Lupke, a big bear of a man, is a very talented goldsmith.  Lupke’s father taught him the business and in turn John has taught his son, his nephew, and his brother-in-law (who also works at BOMI).  John works in a glass enclosed cocoon as David Bowie sings “Ashes to Ashes” on the radio behind him.  “All the real work’s done in here,” he chuckles.  Actually “I haven’t worked in twenty years,” he says, “I play for a living.”  He creates jewelry using a lost wax casting process.  “What we do is take it (the wax design) and put it in plaster, and then we melt, actually cure the plaster in a furnace in the basement.”  A wax impression is left in the plaster.  John then pours gold into it, and then later polishes and assembles each piece.  He says that a goldsmith needs “patience, breathing, time.”
    Graduate Gemologist Susan Huard is an artisan who likes to draw and paint in her free time.  Her “family had a jewelry store in Niagara Falls for sixty years.”  Susan came to BOMI over five years ago.  Grelick says that “Sue takes everything in like a sponge.”  Huard says she enjoys “creating one-of-a-kind pieces.”  She likes the “different way we can work the metal with different stone combinations.  I am really happy to create something and to put it in the showcase and watch somebody buy it and love it.”  She explains that “Gary lets you go with your own ideas.”  Huard says that she “doesn’t see a lot of her clients” because they live in Houston, Florida, Denver and Ohio.  She tends to design for “pockets of people in different places.”

“I came to buy a smile-today–… I’m pleading at the “counter” sir– / could you afford to sell–”
        –Emily Dickinson

    Both Michael Killian and Robert Couch agree that the atmosphere at BOMI is an agreeable one.  Couch says that “It’s fun; you get to see a lot of smiles.”  He particularly enjoys selling pieces that he loves, or finding a good match for a stone–”you want to put it in something to do justice to it.”  The team at BOMI believes that superior service is everything.  Grelick prides himself on treating his customers equally, “no matter what they’re spending.” 
    Speaking on how the industry has changed, Killian adds, “Twenty five years ago, when I started in the business, when you sold a big diamond you made a lot of money.  That’s not the case anymore.”  Profit margins have gone down, particularly on big diamonds.  The “focus now is long term,” on the clients that keep coming back.
    It remains to be seen how the more recent development of synthetic or artificial diamonds will affect the world market.  Boston’s Apollo Diamond, is creating near-flawless ‘diamonds’ using a chemical vapor deposition (CDV) process.  Grelick doesn’t seem too concerned, he says, “Does cubic zirconia say forever to you?”  Jef Van Royen, a senior scientist at the Diamond High Council in Belgium, is quoted in Wired, “It is not a symbol of eternal love if it is something that was created last week…It’s too perfect to be natural.  Things in nature, they have flaws.”
    Jewels are thought to “amplify” the wearer’s qualities, both good and bad.  Since Prehistoric times we have been adorning ourselves with objects of beauty, and we have in turn cultivated a sincere and complex attachment to jewels that we define as precious.  When we wear jewelry we are in essence joining mind, body and spirit. 

    BOMI–the joining of Bob and Mille in name and in life, has become an apt symbol for the dynamic business of their son.