Southern Caribbean Cruising — ABC Islands; Aruba shopping at Noble Jewelers

The store I alluded to on Monday’s article was Noble Jewelers, which shares a building with Kay Fine Jewelry (yep, that Kay’s; like the one in your local mall). But before I begin, let me assure you that I was in no way compensated for this article, nor was it requested by the proprietors at Noble Jewelers. Indeed, this article will probably come as a surprise to them once I send word of it to them. Here is the gentleman who helped us on our quest to secure a reasonably priced yet nice example of an emerald for Ursula:

And, yes, Noble Jewelers is indeed the top seller of Hearts on Fire diamonds. They had a couple of awards displays to prove it. In addition to the one I presented on Monday, here’s another, again with Mukesh “Max” Kumar’s name plastered all over them:

But diamonds do not constitute the sole gemstone sold here. Neither is Hearts on Fire their sole source for diamonds. Here is a gallery of some of their other samplings:

As I mentioned before, this is a very modest store. Totally unexpected when one considers the amount of sales in Hearts on Fire diamonds alone. Here is the interior shot of this unpretentious outlet:

But looking around they definitely won’t let you forget that one specific source for which they are known:

On Monday I told you that I am well aware of Ursula’s tastes in jewelry. Indeed, I frequently find something she’ll like well before she does. This visit to Noble Jewelers proved no exception, as I was the one who discovered a pair of earrings that mesh perfectly with Ursula’s tastes. Alas, Ursula does not wear earrings, so it would appear that finding this gem was all for naught:

The emeralds had color, depth, were relatively clear, and as a bonus they were haloed by a tastefully arranged complementing ring of ten round and eight trapezoid diamonds. Quite the quandary, until Max presented a solution. Max offered to break the set and at no additional cost set one of the earrings as a pendant. Astonishingly, he held to that no-cost pledge even after I negotiated a better price. He asked what I wanted to pay, and to my shock and amazement he accepted my first offer, which I thought was on the lowball side.

Fortunately Grandeur of the Seas was overnighting in Oranjestad, so Max had more than enough time to get the work done for pick-up the following afternoon. The work was very nicely done, as you can see from this photograph:

Okay, that’s it for shopping tips in this series. My apologies if it bored you to tears, but I just thought some might want a tip for shopping in the Southern Caribbean. The rest of the series will be shopping free.

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