A life spent finding value in the unexpected

A 1926 Las Cruces High School ring, nearly 70 years old, came into Keith Austin's possession. It started something he never would have imagined.

The ring had been traded or sold to him by a customer at his Las Cruces jewelry store. To most jewelers, it might have been another piece of previously owned jewelry to evaluate, polish and resell, but Austin saw something else.

He saw history. He saw a connection to the people who had lived in Las Cruces generations earlier. He thought about all the different reasons people have worn rings throughout history — to celebrate accomplishments, demonstrate loyalty, commemorate relationships or simply express themselves, and he decided to start collecting them.

Today, that single keepsake has grown into a collection of somewhere between 9,000 and 10,000 rings, representing centuries of history and cultures from around the world. A portion is displayed in the Ring Museum at Austin's Fine Jewelry on East Idaho Avenue, where visitors can discover everything from ancient Roman rings to children's decoder rings and reproductions of Super Bowl championship rings.

The collection represents something much more personal to Austin than an accumulation of unusual objects. It reflects a lifelong fascination with discovering how things work, where they came from and what they can teach him.

"I have always collected something, and I learned from that," Austin said. "It's a tremendous way for me to learn history and to appreciate things."

That curiosity has helped shape a life and career that took some unexpected turns before Austin found his place in the Las Cruces business community. It also helps explain why, after nearly four decades operating his own jewelry store, he still enjoys going to work.

Austin had never considered becoming a jeweler. Growing up in Tularosa, where his family settled after his father's work as an aircraft mechanic had taken them around the country, there wasn't much money for luxuries.

His first automobile was a 1949 Pontiac that cost $70. Austin had only $35, so he persuaded his brother to contribute the other half. They shared the car.

Jewelry was hardly something he imagined for a career. Instead, he entered retailing at 19, working at a Sears catalog store in Alamogordo. By 21, he was managing his own store in Dumas, Texas, the beginning of a 15-year career with Sears that would take him through Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. He discovered he enjoyed the challenge of running a business.

"You had to learn to first, most importantly, listen," Austin said. "What are they looking for? And help them find it."

But Austin wanted something of his own. He left Sears and purchased a gift shop in Hobbs, confident that his years in retail management had prepared him for the challenge.

Then the oil industry collapsed. Hobbs was heavily dependent on the energy business, and the economic downturn devastated local merchants. Within a year and a half, that chapter was over.

"We lost the store, lost everything," he said.

The setback sent him looking for another opportunity, and eventually to Las Cruces, a community he and his wife, Kathy, already knew and liked. He visited the Sears store at Mesilla Valley Mall, hoping to find employment. As he walked out, he noticed the attractive storefront of Glenn Cutter's jewelry business. Something about it caught his attention.

"I thought, that's a pretty store. It's nice," Austin recalled. "I don't know anything about jewelry, but I know retail."

He walked inside. Cutter happened to be there and hired him on the spot.

That afternoon, Austin found a house to rent. That evening, he called Kathy and told her they would be moving to Las Cruces in two weeks.

It began as an impulsive decision, but became the foundation for the rest of his professional life.

Austin spent eight years working for Cutter, learning the jewelry business and discovering that it offered something beyond traditional retailing. It combined craftsmanship, history, art and personal relationships, interests that had been part of his life long before he ever stepped inside a jewelry store.

When Austin left Cutter's business in 1988, he faced another decision about his future. Rather than seek another job, he chose to start his own business again. This time, however, he had a particular idea about what he wanted to create.

He didn't want to sell only new jewelry. He wanted to accept trade-ins, purchase previously owned pieces and offer customers jewelry that might have a history of its own. To do that successfully, he needed to understand gemstones, their quality and their value.

He enrolled in a correspondence program through the Gemological Institute of America, completing the training over several years while operating a small jewelry business from his home. He picked up repairs from customers, arranged for the work to be done and delivered the finished pieces. He also sold antiques at shows throughout southern New Mexico and maintained spaces in antique malls.

Eventually, he opened a small storefront on Wyatt Drive. It measured just 400 square feet, with one display case and 12 rings in inventory.

The business gradually expanded, and in 1996, Austin moved into the building on East Idaho Avenue that remains his business home today. The store developed a distinctive identity through its combination of new jewelry, estate pieces, repairs, appraisals and trade-ins.

Austin particularly enjoys the possibilities presented by previously owned jewelry. Sometimes customers inherit pieces that have little personal appeal to them, including traditional Southwestern silver and turquoise jewelry. They may prefer something entirely different.

Austin sees an opportunity to help them make that exchange while finding a new owner who appreciates the original piece.

"I love art and all kinds of art, whether I'm creating art or whether I'm repurposing something old and making it into something beautiful and usable today," he said.

It is an approach that connects his jewelry business with his lifelong fascination with collecting. Austin's collections have included stamps, coins, antique bottles, railroad date nails and other objects that captured his curiosity.

But unlike many collectors, he has also been willing to part with entire collections when circumstances required it.

When he needed money to purchase and remodel his present jewelry store, he sold collections he had spent decades assembling.

"I don't want people to cherry pick it and come in and get just the rare stuff and then feel like I've got to rebuild it later," he explained.

Instead, he sells everything, puts the money toward his business and starts wondering what he might collect next. That was the situation when the 1926 class ring came along.

The Ring Museum, which opened in 2013, now houses a rotating display of approximately 40 percent of his collection. Austin changes the exhibits periodically so returning visitors can discover something different.

The collection includes rings associated with schools, military service, fraternal organizations, professional accomplishments, entertainment and popular culture. Some are valuable because of the materials used to make them. Others are historically interesting despite having little monetary value. That distinction is part of the appeal.

Collecting has also provided an unconventional education. As a young student, Austin excelled academically and entered New Mexico Highlands University at 16. But he struggled with sustained reading, a difficulty he came to understand much later in life as a form of dyslexia.

He found that he learned more effectively through mathematics, practical problems, research and hands-on experiences. Collecting gave him opportunities to investigate the history and significance of individual objects, following his curiosity from one discovery to another.

"Every hobby that I've ever had has taught me something," he said.

The museum allows him to share that learning with others rather than keep the collection to himself. There is an interesting contrast between Austin's affection for the past and his approach to running a business. He believes survival in retailing depends on recognizing change and responding to it.

"A failure to change will cause you to fail," he said.

Over more than five decades in retailing, Austin has watched shopping habits transform, from the Sears catalog stores where he began his career to big-box retailers and the rise of online shopping.

He has adapted his inventory and services to changing customer preferences, but one thing he has no intention of abandoning is the personal experience of shopping in a local store. He enjoys meeting customers, learning what they want and helping them make decisions.

An engagement ring, for example, may be the first significant jewelry purchase a young man has ever made. Austin believes the jeweler's responsibility is to understand what the customer can reasonably afford and help him find something meaningful.

Sometimes that means suggesting a less expensive stone, with the possibility of replacing it with a diamond years later. The important thing, Austin believes, is not simply making a sale but helping someone find something appropriate for the occasion and their circumstances.

"People still want to talk to somebody," he said. "They want to come in and it's a buying experience."

That philosophy has kept him committed to a brick-and-mortar business even as retailing has moved increasingly online.

For all his accomplishments in business, Austin is quick to recognize the importance of his wife, Kathy. The two met as teenagers in Tularosa and dated off and on for seven years before marrying in 1970.

Their life together has included moves between states, raising two children, financial setbacks and the demands of building a business. Austin credits Kathy's support, including the stability provided by her career as a nurse practitioner, as an important part of his success.

Now, after decades in the jewelry industry, he has begun considering a gradual reduction in his work schedule. But he isn't particularly interested in walking away from the business he has spent so much of his life developing. There are still customers to help, problems to solve and things to learn. And, of course, there are rings.

Thousands of them, each with a different story about the people who made them, wore them or found some particular meaning in them. Austin's fascination with those stories has never really been about accumulating possessions. It has been about discovering something, understanding it and, when possible, sharing that knowledge with someone else.

The same curiosity that led a young man from Tularosa to explore the countryside looking for interesting objects eventually led him to a jewelry store he never expected to enter, a business he never imagined owning and a museum he never planned to create.

Looking back, Austin sees a common thread running through those experiences.

"This has all been part of my entire life," he said, "finding something and making it work."

A life spent finding value in the unexpected

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