Join Your TownBusiness 
Jeweler celebrates silver anniversary in Marshfield
By Kathryn Koch
Tue Sep 25, 2007, 02:01 PM EDT
Marshfield -When John Holmes opened his jewelry store 25 years ago, he had three competitors in the area now known as Webster Square.
Through attrition, he’s the only one still standing, and has no plans to retire any time soon. He would miss talking to his customers too much.
“I like to talk to people, and I’ve made tons of friends in this area,” he said.
Holmes sold diamonds and wedding bands in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware for ArtCarved for 3 1/2 years 31 years ago before getting homesick for Massachusetts. While working for J.R. Dunn Jewelers in South Weymouth, he decided that it was time he pay his own bills and start his own business. He chose Marshfield.
“It was a growing area bordering on different towns that appealed to us,” he said.
J.R. Holmes was originally in the courtyard where The Workout Club is located before moving to its present location in Webster Square in 1992. Holmes and his wife have raised five children and have 17 grandchildren linked to his legacy as a jewelry store owner.
“It’s been good to me,” he said. “I’m not rich, but I’m not worried about a job.”
Holmes has seen a lot of changes in his 25 years in Marshfield from a jeweler’s perspective. Business was booming in the early 1980s, but crashed in the early 1990s. Right now, business is somewhere in between, he said.
Downtown revitalization projects may result in some lost business heading into the busy holiday season, but Holmes sees hope for the future in a new-look downtown that features a realignment of Snow Road that places the road closer to his business.
Holmes likes to feature different kinds of collections in his store. He sells everything from the Members Only Anheuser-Busch steins that used to be very popular to tide clocks to jeweled crosses. He has one rule for everything he sells.
Holmes said he would be crushed if anyone ever accused him of cheating him or her because it’s the nature of the business that people trust him.
“It’s a trust business,” he said. “People have to trust you. People must trust me, I’ve been here 25 years.”
At 67, Holmes doesn’t have the memory for names he once had, but a description of the piece he’s working on quickly jogs his memory about whether the work is one or not, and he can recognize regular customers and ask about the latest birth in the family as they walk through the door.
Holmes sells a full line of gold and silver jewelry, repairs watches and does engraving and limited appraisal, among other offerings. Most of the products he sells are made in the United States, and he tries to do business with U.S. dealers as much as possible.
Popular among his customers are the tide clocks made in Marshfield, the Cape Cod Colors collection of Town Colors jewelry made in Sandwich and Pathfinder Wildlife and Celtic Art porcelain jewelry handmade in Michigan
Store hours vary and are listed week to week on the door of J.R. Holmes, or call 781-837-5607. Holmes enjoys his job and his customers. As the sign on his storefront reads, “J.R. Holmes Jewelers Thanks You.”
