I Love NY
I remember my brother and I growing up in Upstate New York. I mean WAY upstate where everyone there refers to it as central New York. We lived in the suburban town of North Syracuse, a few miles from the city proper but we attended Liverpool Central schools from Elementary through High School. You see, we lived right on the border of North Syracuse and Liverpool, and though our postal address said North Syracuse, our school district was Liverpool. A few streets away the kids went to completely different schools than us. I think about that now and realize how strange it really was, not getting to know people that close you, yet becoming friends with those six miles away, nearer to a school you were being bussed to.
That was a long time ago. A time when, like now, little boys played with Tonka trucks, but then they were Tonka trucks made out of steel, now they’re plastic. Actually, we grew up in a period that saw a major shift from most consumer items being made out of natural materials like woods, metals and rubber to being made from plastics. At this same time my father worked as a furniture refinisher. For years he had worked for General Electric repairing damaged television sets as they came down the assembly line. These sets were made of wood – many of you recall those old humungous console sets that used to be popular. My father used to repair the wooden cabinets on these. He also used to do work on the side, “House Calls” he called them, where he would visit someone’s home and perform his miracles on any type of furniture, from a cigarette burn on a mahogany coffee table (cigarettes were quite popular then), to an heirloom chair which had been gnawed on by the owner’s dog, to anything made of wood which had been damaged by variety of household mishaps. You name it – he fixed it. He would also frequently bring home those pieces that required more time and more extensive work. I remember the thick lacquer fumes in our garage, my father keeping the garage door shut so that the neighbors wouldn’t have to endure, or complain, a likely cause for the lung cancer that he would develop twenty years later. His specialty was “color patchwork”. After repairing a crushed corner of a table, for example, he would mix stains as necessary to match the original color and painstakingly paint in wood grains matching the nature of the original wood. It was amazing to watch him work, blending “his” creation with that originally created by nature.
I learned about quality at a very young age.
Over the years, the K-Marts and Wal-Marts came to town selling inexpensive, knockdown furniture from far off lands, eventually marking the end of an era for craftsmen like my father. Sure, we can still find quality in today’s world, but much more of our world today seems to be lacking it. But I’m thrilled that I am sensing a bit of a return to quality today. I think more people are putting more emphasis on quality. You even commonly hear the expression “quality time” because the fast changing world has us frittering away time in so many directions and quality time is a precious commodity.
But my emphasis here is on quality products, and there is one product in particular that I think gives meaning to the word Quality. That product is Landstroms Black Hills Gold jewelry. Landstroms is a company that was born out of the last 
great American gold rush in the late 1870’s in what is now the Black Hills of western South Dakota. Traditional Black Hills Gold jewelry is a style of jewelry that incorporates grapes, grapevines and grape leaves into each piece’s design. The symbolic leaves have are colored pink and green. Blending copper with gold makes the pink leaves and the green leaves are made by combining sterling silver with gold.
Over the past 120 years Landstroms has remained family owned and dedicated to quality, creating what has come to be appreciated as a true American art form. Though other Black Hills Gold manufacturing companies have arrived on the scene, none can match the integrity of Landstroms quality products. I became involved with this company back in 2006, and all I can say is that I am impressed. You can see and feel the quality of Landstroms workmanship, from the thickness of their leaves and ring shanks, to the fine detailing, to the weight of gold in each piece. That’s why people who know Black Hills Gold ask for Landstrom’s by name.
There can be only one original, and that is Landstrom’s Original Black Hills Gold, where quality has never left.