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Business & Tech

After 65 Years, a Celebration at Paramount Jewelers

The Maplewood store will hold monthly drawings for free jewelry to commemorate its anniversary.

Since 1946, Maplewood residents have gone to to purchase that special something and acknowledge memorable life events, from engagements and weddings to births and graduations.

This week the business will recognize its own milestone: Paramount is commemorating its 65th anniversary.

Maplewood Mayor James White is set to declare Aug. 25 as Paramount Jewelers’ Day. At 4 p.m. on Thursday, White will present the business with a proclamation at its building in downtown Maplewood. A private, after-hours reception will follow.

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Community celebrations are scheduled later in the year, with monthly drawings for select gifts of jewelry in October, November and December.

“Word of mouth, that’s the secret of our success,” said proprietor Paul Buenger as he replaced a watch battery, wearing a small jeweler’s magnifying glass over one eye.

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Paramount is the opposite of chain jewelry stores at big malls, Buenger said.

“We don’t offer 50 percent off sales. We don’t have any slogans, and we don’t pretend to be anything that we’re not,” he said.

But the Maplewood business does offer more than the standard jeweler, he said.

Paramount creates custom designed pieces, like a ring encrusted with black and white diamonds meant to mimic a starry night sky, as in Van Gogh’s famous painting. However, it also sells a variety of retail lines, from an everyday Timex to luxury Swiss-made Tissot watches.

Although rings and pendants are the business’s top sellers, the small shop of five employees does a brisk business in replacing watch batteries too. But crafting original jewelry designs is clearly what Buenger enjoys most.  

“I’ve got a long, wicked creative streak,” said Buenger, 53, who joined the Maplewood store 28 years ago as a bench jeweler, setting stones and making repairs. About four years ago, he bought the business from the family of Arnold Hirsch, Paramount’s original owner and a Czechoslovakian immigrant.

Buenger, who describes himself as an artist and jeweler, finds inspiration for his original designs in nature, art and geometry. His most recent memorable design was a pendant crafted from a rare, Australian black opal, studded with a stream of diamonds on one side, and a teardrop diamond at the bottom. Buenger designed it for a breast cancer patient.

But the Maplewood business also repairs and restores jewelry, including heirlooms.

“A few years ago, we worked on a seven-carat marquis diamond ring,” Buenger said. “It was easily worth over $100,000.”

Persons of far more modest means can also shop at the store. And if something is a bit more, the store offers lay-away, and interest-free financing for two years.

“We are not overpriced,” Buenger said. “Nor do we cater to people who want to overspend on their jewelry.”

That and good service is why customers keep coming back.

is located at 7348 Manchester Road.

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