Business Begins

In 1972, Jim and Tim met Dick Smith, an opal dealer, who encouraged them to incorporate opals into their silver jewelry. They also began to hand fabricate more of their jewelry and did less of the charcoal casting. They became acquainted with the owner of Kym of Australia, a Minneapolis gift store who agreed to carry their jewelry and whose sales representative agreed to market their wares nationally at the wholesale level.

Because of this added commitment to marketing their jewelry, it became necessary to set up an efficient shop, which first was in the house and later took over the garage of Tim’s first house. When they partnered with Larry Perleberg, another student at the college, JTL Handcraft Jewelry was founded. Up until 1978, when they became Gannaway Bros. Jewelry, every piece of jewelry was stamped inside with the JTL trademark.

Selling wholesale nationally required the creation of a catalogue. Due to money constraints, it was hand-drawn by one of the jewelers at JTL. Once the catalogue was distributed, orders started pouring in and other jewelry students were enlisted to help fill the orders. At times, it was not uncommon for complaints to surface from customers who wondered why these pieces were not more uniform. They didn’t realize the difficulty of producing uniformity when all of the components of the piece of jewelry were cut out, bent, formed, and sodered by hand. Because of these complaints and their desire to exactly replicate their designs, they were forced to pay close attention to details and exercise extreme discipline. This high standard helped them hone their skills in metal work.