Diamonds are forever.

Diamonds are a girl's best friend.

Diamonds are on Stephen Cranford's jeweler's bench.

Twenty-eight years ago, The Jeweler's Bench started off as the little jewelry store with big bargains.

Big bargains isn't the slogan anymore. At the corner of Jackson and Wrightsboro roads, a mile away from the sale-driven chain jewelry stores saturating Augusta Mall, Mr. Cranford focuses on service.

"What impresses me about this store is the loyalty of his customers. Repeat after repeat," said Ed Bowles, who came out of retirement from a career with Zales to work two days a week for Mr. Cranford. "They know we'll give them an honest opinion."

A bronze-colored woman's watch is handed behind the mirrored divider. It takes Mr. Bowles about 45 seconds to pop off the back with a flathead screwdriver, insert a new battery, replace the back and hand it back to the customer.

Repairs are the backbone of the store. Actually, watch and jewelry repair was its genesis.

Mr. Cranford was a trader of precious metals whose dealings with gold opened up the possibility of repairing rings, bracelets and watches. After a two-week crash course on repair, he was at the bench at nights.

He is also a certified gemologist, and he does appraisals of jewelry -- mostly to determine insurance value.

"You get such a straight answer from him. He's not going to mince any words. He's going to tell you just like it is, no sugar coating; you get a direct answer from him," said Dr. John Fisher, a friend for 30 years. "We don't get enough people that speak the truth and tell you what they think."

Mr. Cranford's business smarts come from his maternal grandfather, Grady Timmerman, a restaurateur who dabbled in real estate.

"Customer service is the name of the game. My granddaddy told me: Good product, treat people right with a fair price and you don't go out of business," Mr. Cranford said.

It was one of his grandfather's friends who steered him away from a career in law.

"Whatever his heart's desire would have been, I would have been happy," said his wife, Tricia. "He found a profession that he really loves."

These days, he is in danger of losing his office, and that's a good thing.

The showroom needs to grow to show off more bridal jewelry under the glass.

Building a brand

XM satellite radio has Kenny G and James Ingram echoing inside the brightly lit store. Mrs. Cranford is putting together the Mother's Day displays, one of her part-time duties at the shop.

"Most of the people think that because I'm a jeweler's wife, that I'll be wearing the latest trend. Not the case for me. I'm not truly a jewelry person. I'm partial to the sentimental pieces," Mrs. Cranford said, referring to a bracelet for her birthday, Christmas earrings and anniversary necklace.

She does enjoy the travel. The Cranfords just got back from Antwerp, Belgium, participating in a diamond-buying trek with the Independent Jewelers Organization. Mr. Cranford said 60 percent of the world's diamonds are cut or traded there.

The "just got back" ad campaign will be rolling out soon.

"We buy for customers while we're over there. I can look at 1-carat diamonds all day long if I want to," Mr. Cranford said.

That sounds like some long days.

"It is 2 1/2 long days," he explained. The rest of the week is for sightseeing.

"This time, I found a deal on some half-carat stones. Really pretty stones. We've got a lot of mountings we're going to mount them in," Mr. Cranford said.

The Jeweler's Bench is going to have its own line of diamond rings. Mr. Cranford said he's dealing with a manufacturer now to get it set up.

"Everything is branded now. The business is different," he said. "There's Hearts on Fire; there's a lot of branding out there. They're no longer diamonds, semimounts; they have their own names."

It is a business based on emotion. He has sat down with a couple where the man is discussing angles and cuts -- "And she's going 'Oh, God, it is beautiful.' "

"We have to know what you're thinking across the counter," Mr. Cranford continued. "We have to remember what you're going through, especially if you're buying an engagement ring.

"Other than a house, this is one of the most major purchases you and her (are) ever going to make. It is going to be the most sentimental."

Mr. Cranford said most of his items for sale are "onesie, twosie" unusual pieces. He can't sell the same stuff as the mall stores, he explained.

"We're not a discounter. We have it priced right ... If your business is based on price, you have to buy every sale. You can't be the cheapest in town," Mr. Cranford said.

He operates under the philosophy that quality is expensive. He will buy $150 pants because he'll get more use out of them than the $50 pants that will fall apart at the seams in eight months.

Mr. Cranford cut out a Tiffany's ad. He plans to laminate it because the message is something he had never thought about: Over the course of a lifetime, a woman will look at her diamond a million times.

"She'll think about you a million times," he said. "And you're trying to save $500 by not buying one that doesn't look as good?"

A place in business

Mr. Cranford doesn't drive to Lincolnton, Ga., often these days. He has had a store there for a decade but needs to go there only to deliver diamonds special for a customer. The staff in the Lincoln County store does all the rest.

That Jeweler's Bench has a different model from the Augusta store. Because it is the only jewelry store in town, it has to have something for everyone and carry the inexpensive gift items.

Mr. Cranford hadn't planned on expanding to Lincoln County. A friend owned the strip mall there, lost a tenant and asked whether he would fill the gap.

"He talked me into it by giving me month-to-month rent and add-ons," Mr. Cranford said.

It wasn't the first time a friend in need had provided him a business opportunity.

Except for the four years he lived in Mobile, Ala., during college, Mr. Cranford qualifies as a lifelong resident of Augusta. He came home from Spring Hill College with a degree in history, intent on becoming a lawyer.

College was more than just being four years away from home. He was four years away from his high school sweetheart.

"It was hard when he was away, but he's the love of my life," Mrs. Cranford said. "You meet that special someone and you know it."

In the interim, she went to business school and then worked for her high school, Aquinas, while Mr. Cranford was away. They got married as soon as he graduated.

He visited one of his grandfather's friends and got a discouraging "everybody's in law" speech.

"OK, I won't do law," Mr. Cranford said.

So he went to work selling plumbing supplies and appliances. One of his connections became a business opportunity. The owner of Columbia Square Decorating wanted out. Mr. Cranford bought him out in monthly installments.

It was a wallpaper gold mine.

"I was out in Martinez when Martinez wasn't Martinez. It wasn't anything. All these subdivisions were going up there," Mr. Cranford recalled.

A countryside swarming with builders, and a timesaving customer service idea, made for a successful venture. He took his wallpaper to them, in booklet form, so they could call in the order.

"Dealing with those builders, they were far too busy to come to my store to pick out wallpaper, which is what they were doing with other people," Mr. Cranford said. "Smart at the time, but felt it was commonsense to bring it to them."

He sold the carpet and wallpaper store after several years. He was making money by dealing in precious metals.

It was a situation similar to today. Gold had rocketed up to $800 an ounce.

"We thought we'd never see that again. People are now getting back into the gold buying business," Mr. Cranford said.

That business, Augusta Precious Metals, hit a snag in 1981, when the city council enacted new licensing requirements that bumped the bond $100,000. It was excessive enough that Mr. Cranford fought it in federal court and won. The bond came down to $25,000, but gold was coming down, too, and the business died on its own.

A new trade

By then, the exposure to gold had sparked an idea for another business. Mr. Cranford saw a need for jewelry repair that could be done within a day or two -- and one in which the repairman could meet with the customer.

The repair business kept The Jeweler's Bench alive for the first few years until there was enough money to buy jewelry to sell.

Mr. Cranford said he didn't take a salary for the first year. He is proud that he didn't borrow any money, either.

An employee did the repairs when the Bench opened, before he went to school in Selma, Ala., to learn repairs from a jeweler, Homer Holland.

"He was one of the best in the country," Mr. Cranford said. "It was tough, young like that, going away for two weeks."

Mrs. Cranford had stopped working to stay home and rear their children.

"Probably the best thing I ever did. I learned some ethical things from him, too," Mr. Cranford said.

Some things he learned the hard way, such as how superheated air in the gap between the stone and the ring can shoot the gem like a bullet.

After five years of night repairs, the Jeweler's Bench moved a couple dozen yards to its current home.

With the dissolution of Doris Diamonds and the majority of Windsor Jewelers now owned by a San Francisco equity firm, Mr. Cranford said his store has become the largest locally owned independent jeweler in the city.

He said he has stayed above the fray in the local jeweler wars.

"I never said anything bad about my competitors. Always felt like there is room for everybody," Mr. Cranford said.

A good model

The self-made jeweler got his personal touch from his stepfather, Dr. Peter Cranford, himself a self-made man.

The first practicing psychologist in Augusta also wrote books on golf and the Milledgeville, Ga., hospital where he worked. Dr. Cranford was instrumental in the creation of the television quiz show $64,000 Question, which was modeled after his 1940 radio version called Take It or Leave It, in which the jackpot climbed to $64.

"He was always inventing on the side," Mr. Cranford said. "He came up with the isolation booth, which was the hook for the TV show."

Dr. Cranford was the head of the psychiatric ward at Central State Hospital, when he met Mr. Cranford's mother, Helen, a nurse.

Dr. Cranford died in 2000. Neither Mr. Cranford nor his brothers followed in their stepfather's footsteps. It wasn't a very romantic profession back then.

Tricia Cranford said her husband gleaned a love of golf, history and books from his stepfather.

His fondness for reading started with the Hardy Boys books as a youngster, his wife said.

"He used to ride his bicycle down to the drugstore to get the newest Hardy Boys book as it came out and read it cover to cover that night," she said.

He still has those books.

Family man

Stephen Cranford grew up in the apartments on Milledge Road near Augusta Country Club. His friends and family are conspiring for ways to get Mr. Cranford back to the golf course.

"He either doesn't take the time or have the time to do much practice or play," Dr. Fisher said. "He could always shoot in the 70s when I played with him. He was always better than I. He's the kind of guy who can shoot in the 80s without having played in months."

They became friends by being on the junior golf trail together, following their children around the country in golf tournaments.

Mr. Cranford spent a lot of time over the years with his three sons, two of whom went on to collegiate golf careers. The third is playing soccer at Mercer University.

"Owning this store allowed me to go to a lot of golf tournaments from here to California," Mr. Cranford said. "Miss time here at work for that, but I've got good people. Those are memories I'll never forget."

If gas had been as expensive then as it is now, he might not have made it. There was a lot of driving involved in the junior golf tournaments.

"They were lucky enough to be good enough to be in them. Coaches were there, so we had to go because they wanted to play in college," Mr. Cranford recalled.

The family went through several vehicles over those years. Mr. Cranford laments that now that he has the money to travel, he doesn't need to do it often.

"He's a competitive guy, but in a nice way. He's rooting for you, too," Dr. Fisher said, meaning he's not wishing his kids to win at the expense of others.

Mr. Cranford is well-versed in the rules of golf. He even went to Atlanta to take a rules course, Dr. Fisher said.

That came in helpful in the years he donated his time to be the Aquinas High School golf team, which won the state title in 1995 -- with one of Mr. Cranford's and two of Dr. Fisher's children playing on the team.

The Cranfords are involved in a supper club with the Fisher family and others, including Augusta optometrist Tom Casella.

"He's always been somebody that took an interest in local sports. He was active with the boosters club and encouraged sports at the Y," Dr. Casella said.

Mr. Cranford was the president of the Aquinas Boosters Club the year before Dr. Casella.

"He's been a big supporter of Catholic education in the city," Dr. Fisher said.

Mr. Cranford is the auctioneer at the annual fundraiser.

There's a smile and "bad question" in response to the subject of grandchildren. The oldest sons, Jeremy and Adam, are married but heavily occupied by their careers. The youngest son, Matt, is in college, so there are no grandchildren yet.

"One of my best friends had another grandchild last week," Mr. Cranford said.

That would be Dr. Casella.

"People are just blessed at different times," Dr. Casella said. "They'll be great grandparents."

Mrs. Cranford said that as her husband ponders retirement, she would like to take him on a tour of all the Civil War battlefields.

"I'd been retired if some of those guys hadn't cheated," Mr. Cranford said of the scandal that ruined the $64,000 Question and the royalties that his father would have received from the popular show.

"When the obituary for this business is finally written, I hope it'll say we served people well, made some good, loyal customers and friends, we never cheated anybody," he said.

Reach Tim Rausch at (706) 823-3352 or timothy.rausch@augustachronicle.com.