Family-owned jewelry store to close after 46 years
Midland Daily News (subscription), MI
Their family came to Midland when the Ashman Circle really was a circle and the shopping area rivaled downtown. Now, the 46-year-old Robison’s Fine Jewelry store is closing at year’s end.
“It’s another one of the old things in Midland that are going away, which is sort of sad,” said Donna Weyer, 82, who eyed merchandise carefully Friday. Here is a place where a person can find older-style pieces, she said.
Robert Robison, a watch maker who’d worked at a Saginaw jewelry store, opened his Midland store on the Circle in 1960. At first, he only
repaired watches, but later expanded his business to include jewelry and gifts. Over the years, the store has had five locations
“As we grew, we moved,” said Tad Robison who, with brother Blake, operates the store. At one time, the Robisons had three side-by-side stores: a gift shop, jewelry store and flower shop.
“We had a cute little VW bug, white, that looked like a gift box” to deliver the crystal, flatware and fine china his family sold. Eventually, that business went away because shipping became costly and big-box stores took over the gift business, the brothers said. The current store isn’t big enough for gifts.
The two sons, their mother Theresa and their grandfather Harold Robison helped Robert in the store’s earlier days. Harold repaired electric razors until the Community Drug Store took over that business.
In the early days, the Circle had a boulevard running through it. At Christmas time, Blake and Tad helped hang decorations up and down the boulevard on lamp posts.
For two years now, the brothers have been working on plans to close the store.
“We saw a lot of things coming,” Tad said. “We saw the landscape change for the Mom-and-Pop stores.”
Those changes include big stores, TV shopping, the Internet and younger shoppers who prefer buying online instead of gazing into glass cases.
“Definitely the economic conditions right now are having an effect,” he added.
By lunchtime Friday, a steady stream of customers came through the door to look at bracelets and earrings, to get a finger sized for a ring and to have a stone tightened.
Diamonds have been a mainstay of the business, said Tad, who used his goldsmithing skills to create jewelry. Blake, a gemologist, appraises the value and quality of jewelry customers bring in. Jewelry is very personal for customers, Tad said, so the brothers were happy to give individualized treatment for the presentation of a rare gift such as an engagement ring.
“Sometimes we delivered engagement rings with a bouquet of flowers, sometimes a teddy bear,” he said. Sometimes, they put together successively smaller boxes, adding suspense as the recipient opened box after box.
Laura Chase stopped Friday and said she was “so sad!” about the store’s closing. She and her husband bought their rings at Robison’s for their wedding in 1975.
“I’ve always liked this store,” she said. “The people know what they’re doing when they talk about the stones, and they set their own rings.”
Tad said the brothers are planning a new business for their store location, but he wouldn’t say what it is other than that it won’t be retail.
“Actually, it’s going to be more of a career change for me and my brother,” he said.
