What it’s actually like
Fifth Avenue’s jewelry reputation was built on turquoise and silver. The Estate Watch & Jewelry Company works the other side of the trade: signed estate pieces, diamonds, gold and pre-owned Swiss watches, sold, bought, repaired and lent against from one showroom. It sits in Suite 23 at 7121 East Fifth Avenue, one of the suites in the multi-tenant building on the curve west of Scottsdale Road, and it has been in business since 1997.
The room is a working jeweler’s, not a boutique. The cases hold estate rings, necklaces, bracelets, brooches and earrings in a range of periods, with a deep bench of luxury watches, Rolex above all. A good share of the customers come in to sell rather than buy. The company buys diamonds, gold, designer jewelry and watches over the counter, and that buying is how the estate cases stay stocked. Staff include graduates of the Gemological Institute of America, and the watch side has its own watchmakers for repair and servicing.
What began as one Scottsdale business is now a multi-state company with stores elsewhere in Arizona and in Texas, Utah and Colorado. The Old Town showroom is still the one the company calls its primary location, and since 2017 the inventory has also reached collectors nationally through 1stDibs.
What to buy
A pre-owned Swiss watch. The core of the business. Ask about the service history and the warranty, and compare the price against new retail; that comparison is the reason to shop estate.
A signed estate piece. Designer and period jewelry that you cannot order from a catalog. The cases change constantly because the stock comes in over the same counter.
A custom setting for a stone you already own. The custom design service is the way to turn a grandmother’s diamond into something you will actually wear.
Parking, timing and the practical stuff
The showroom is on the Fifth Avenue curve in the Fifth Avenue and downtown district. Use the free public garage on the Fifth Avenue side near the canal or the Civic Center garage off Drinkwater Boulevard. If you are carrying jewelry or watches to sell, park in the Fifth Avenue garage and keep the walk short. The 7121 building is a cluster of suites, so look for Suite 23 rather than a big storefront sign. The Old Town on foot note maps the district.
Selling takes longer than browsing. An evaluation of a watch or a diamond is not a five-minute job, so allow time and avoid the last hour of the day. Bring identification, which licensed buyers require, and every scrap of documentation you have: boxes, papers, receipts, appraisals and service records.
Buying rewards questions. Ask what a watch has had done to it, who did it, and what the warranty covers. For an estate piece, ask about the period and the maker’s marks. A good estate jeweler answers both without hesitation.
High season, January through April, brings the winter residents and the busiest counter. Weekday mornings are the calmest time for a long conversation. Thursday’s ArtWalk on Marshall Way, a short walk away, fills the street around sunset.
Eat while you’re there
Cartel Roasting Co. is across the street and the right place to think over an offer. Citizen Public House, a few doors west, is the gastropub lunch, and Original ChopShop toward Scottsdale Road is the quick, healthy one. For a celebration after a purchase, FnB in Craftsman Court is the most decorated restaurant in Arizona; book ahead.
How it got here
Jewelry has been on Fifth Avenue since the street was cut. The craftsmen who graded it through farmland south of the Arizona Canal in 1950, the story the Fifth Avenue lexicon entry tells, included silversmiths, and the 1950s avenue sold handmade silver to winter visitors from the start. Native jewelry dealers like Sewell’s, whose roots go back to 1932, gave the street its identity, and the Ortega family’s stores made turquoise and silver Old Town’s signature.
A second jewelry economy grew alongside the first. The resort town of the 1980s and 1990s brought money, second homes and estates, and with them a steady supply of fine jewelry and luxury watches that needed buying, selling, appraising and repairing. The Estate Watch & Jewelry Company was founded in 1997 to work that trade, combining an estate showroom with a buying counter and a repair bench.
The model scaled. Over the following decades the company built a large online presence, began selling through 1stDibs in 2017, and opened stores beyond Arizona in Texas, Utah and Colorado. It now describes itself as the largest estate fine jeweler in Arizona. Its Fifth Avenue showroom, in a suite of the same building that holds candle makers and Arizona-made gift shops, remains the primary location.
It is a different kind of Fifth Avenue jeweler from the turquoise dealers up the curve, and the street has room for both. The avenue was built by people who made jewelry. Seventy-five years on, it also has a shop that buys it back.