White Pine launches fine jewelry division

New York--White Pine Trading, which deals in recycled diamonds, has created a fine jewelry division in order to give retail jewelers across the country access to inventory that will boost margins, the company said.

White Pine said its buyers are looking for a wide variety of inventory, not just diamonds but also branded, fashion, antique and estate jewelry, and watches.

The new division already has assembled one of the largest inventories of branded bridal jewelry in North America, White Pine said, offering several of the top-performing bridal lines at significantly reduced prices to retailers.

With a national acquisitions team and sales team of 15 industry veterans, White Pine also said it is looking to add more employees, recruiting people who “think of themselves almost as in-house buyers for their customers,” the company said in a release.

“If 45 luxury brand watches come in tomorrow at 20 cents on retail, I’ll call the retailers whom I know have a strong strategic interest in the opportunity. In other words, we act as the eyes and ears of our customers. We don’t look to just fill orders,” said Dominic Mainella, head of the fine jewelry division.

In addition to Mainella, who joined White Pine to develop and coach the division’s sales team as well as research and develop acquisitions, the company recently added industry veterans Danny Dye and Frank Parisi to the division’s sales team, working directly with retailers. Dye will concentrate on the New England market while Parisi will focus on the Mid-Atlantic region.

RELATED CONTENT: White Pine offering discounted inventory

The company already has acquired the inventory from several hundred manufacturers over the past few months, including that of JewelAmerica and liquidated wholesaler Bauman-Massa Jewelry Co., which it sold to retailers at a discount.

White Pine buys recycled (meaning pre-owned), polished diamonds of all sizes and grades, either loose or as secondhand jewelry.

The company re-manufactures chipped, damaged, and poorly cut diamonds to “homogenize” appearance, and uses a significant proportion of its diamonds in jewelry. It resells the remainder to retailers, jewelry manufacturers, diamond manufacturers and dealers primarily in the United States and Asia.

The company’s White Pine Jewelry Solutions division also provides consulting and other services to retailers, manufacturers, wholesalers and the industry’s asset-based lenders.