Bethany James and Dan Mikel | The Diamond Cellar

The Gold Standard 

Relying on talent, expertise and an unrivaled personal touch, Diamond Cellar’s goldsmiths create custom jewelry that lasts a lifetime.

For Bethany James and Dan Mikel, creating a totally unique piece of multi-generational jewelry that will often outlast the life of its original owner is all in a day’s work.

That’s because both are goldsmiths at the Dublin-area Diamond Cellar in Columbus. The pair work tirelessly with clients—day in and day out—to create cherished pieces that span an enormous variety of trends and aesthetics.

While the long-standing Columbus brand, (DIamond Cellar was founded in 1947) regularly carries upwards of 30,000 individual pieces of jewelry, when customers don’t see that perfect piece on the shelves, they can always opt to create their own using the brand’s concierge-level custom jewelry services, which relies on James and Mikel crafting individual pieces precisely to customers’ needs.

“Before anything else happens, the first part of the process is about just making a connection with the customer,” Bethany said. “We try to pull out important dates, events and what really matters to them.”

Mikel agreed, adding that being present and truly understanding a customer is a Diamond Cellar-born skill that’s as important to the success of their trade as is decades of experience, expert-level dexterity and mechanical know-how.

“Really, it’s about empathy; just listening is one of the most important parts of the job, and that’s one thing that you don’t get from a lot of places, or just other retailers in general,” he said. “We want to give clients the True Jeweler™ experience.”

After figuring out what a client wants, the process for Diamond Cellar’s custom goldsmiths involves hand-drawn designs that are shown to the client, which can go through a series of renovations until the client is totally satisfied. Once this is selected, a cast for the piece is created using CAD designs. And then the goldsmiths can begin the physical creation of the piece.

In the case of a custom piece created for Diamond Cellar Director of Marketing Operations Melissa McCoy, a family heirloom (another piece of jewelry) was even incorporated. Created by Mikel, the piece used her grandmother’s wedding ring, creating a necklace with it that is adorned with diamonds from her mother’s wedding set. The piece also has McCoy’s grandmother’s name inscribed on the ring, and McCoy plans to hand the ring down to her daughter (who she named after her grandmother) eventually as well.

For Mikel, after understanding what exactly McCoy wanted with her custom necklace, the piece primarily became an exercise in balance.

“We wanted to take a variety of different stones and put them into a piece that embraced this. This connects her with three different people every time she puts it on” Mikel said. “At the same time, we didn’t need to go crazy on the design end; this is something we wanted to put together in a way that was very pretty but understated, so that it sort of goes with everything and you want to wear it consistently.”

While the satisfaction of completing a multi-dimensional piece is its own reward, according to Bethany and Mikel, what’s most important for them, and for the Columbus-born concept Diamond Cellar, is to create something that each client will love and cherish for a lifetime. Maybe even more, and it’s handed down to children and grandchildren.

“I just feel honored, I thank our customers quite a bit for their trust, and because of that I put myself in every piece that I make. I think that’s it’s just really special to be able to create something that will be around for generations,” Bethany said.

To learn more about Diamond Cellar and its two Columbus locations, visit  www.diamondcellar.com