Welcome to the Jewelry District, a podcast by J.C.K. brought to you by IGII, the International Gemological Institute.

Today, Rob Bates and Victoria Gamowski talk with John Green, president and CEO of Lux, Bond, and Green.

Hey, everyone.

Welcome to the jewelry district.

This is Victoria Gamelski, editor-in-chief of JCP and J-C-K and J J-CK Online.com, calling in from Los Angeles, and I'm with

Rob Bates, news director of J-CK and JCPanline.com, calling in from New York City. How you doing, okay?

I'm doing good. I just got back from yet another trip I was in Tucson all last week, which, as you know, is one of my favorite trips of the year. It's certainly my favorite trade show. Don't tell that to our kind overlords at JCP. But Tucson, I've been going to the show since 2001. I think I missed a couple. There was, of course, the pandemic year, the 21 show was

canceled or kind of delayed, postponed, I think may have missed one other one in all that time,

but it is such a ritual for me that I really can't imagine not going. And I'll save my recap.

I'll just tell you, in general, it felt much slower. The traffic was not there, and it felt very noticeable because oftentimes, and certainly for the last few years, coming out of the pandemic with jewelry demand, spiking, there was a ton of business sit and a ton of energy at the shows. Now, I don't think that necessarily translates into poor sales because quite a few people said

they were having a great show, but, you know, it may mean that they were just fewer buyers

spending more money and prices were definitely higher across the board. So I'll have on our next

episode when we don't have a guest waiting in the wings, as it were, I'll recap a little bit

more of what I found and some of the

stones that were trending and any of the news that I found. It was a fun Tucson. It just wasn't quite as

bustling as I typically expect it to be. How are you, Rob? Everything good? You're coming for a holiday,

right? Yeah, I'm about to go on vacation, actually. So I'm excited about that. I want to like do a round of applause because I,

you, you have your traditional holiday in the summer and around your birthday, you take a little

time off, but you haven't taken enough vacation. So I really, I know, I know. Yes, I'm going to

Disneyland. Disneyland, right? In my neck, it's here in Anaheim. And I think it's good because my son is not,

he's still, I think, young enough to enjoy it and not old enough to be jaded. No, I mean,

it's going to be great. Is he super excited? Yeah, he's excited. You know, he's, I have to say,

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