The Jewelists

Ricardo De Blanco, a Texan with lavish tastes and enough oil wells to gratify them, was quite pleased with the diamond-buckled gold belt which Dallas' Linz Bros, had sold him "to wear with slacks." But his pet grey poodle, Toto, was troubled: his unruly hair kept tumbling into his eyes. Could Linz Bros, make Toto happy, too? It could, indeed. Last week, having fixed Toto's bangs with a set of silver barrettes (and a $250 diamond-studded white-gold set for Sundays), Linz Bros, was designing a Western-style dog collar for De Blanco's approval. It would have ruby-studded gold and silver buckles.

In rich and sentimental Texas, such resourceful attention to the customer's whims has put Linz Bros. "Jewelists" (a copyrighted coinage) in a class by itself. To gladden its clients' eyes, Linz has turned out gold and platinum cowboy belt buckles, and jeweled stickpins shaped like oil derricks (one of them for a late-shopping oilman who amused himself while he waited by tossing silver dollars on the floor ahead of the janitor's broom). But such spectacular baubles are only the showy side of a solid, 72-year-old trade that grosses $2,000,000 a year.

Out on the Road. Linz Bros, does not wait for business to step up to its horseshoe-shaped gem counter, but goes out after it with salesmen who range all over Texas. Any Texan who strikes it rich can expect to hear from a Linz salesman about the time he buys his first Cadillac. In their modest little sample cases the salesmen might carry a fortune in jewels. To stay out of the way of thieves, they travel under assumed names, never get too clubby in the club cars, and use a code to communicate with the home office. None has ever been robbed.

Their gadding about follows the tradition that Joseph Linz, a St. Louis watchmaker, began when he set up shop in the railroad town of Denison, Tex. in 1877, not long after the last big Indian raid. He sent brother Albert Linz roaming the Southwest by buggy and train, sleeping in railroad stations with his head pillowed on his jewel box, while he and two other brothers--Simon and Ben--ran the store.

Up on the Roof. Brother Albert outlived all the rest. He was present on the day in 1899 when the shop moved to the Linz Building--a seven-story Dallas "skyscraper" with a roof garden where visitors could relax and enjoy the view.* And he was on hand in 1940 when Linz Bros, moved to its present quarters, a severely modern building a few doors from the Neiman-Marcus department store. Until his death last February, at 85, "Mr. Albert" showed up every day to hand his customers Irish jokebooks, and horehound candy to ward off colds. Then brother Simon's heirs stepped in--son Clifton Linz as president, son-in-law Asher Kahn as vice president. Under them, Linz's business is 600% greater than prewar.

As a sideline, Linz gives an annual "Linz Award" to deserving civic leaders and presents honor high-school graduates with "Linz pins" as badges of good scholarship. But most of its energy goes to cultivating an exclusive clientele. Recently some tourists from Chicago told a Linz Bros, salesman, a little breathlessly, that they had heard that Neiman-Marcus chartered planes for favored customers, fetching them in from remote towns and flying them home with their purchases. The salesman nodded patronizingly. "Of course," he murmured, "most of our customers have their own planes."

*One 1899 visitor, Tennessee's Governor Bob Taylor, called Linz Bros, "the diamond stud in the shirt bosom of Texas."

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