Photo by Eileen Moon
By Eileen Moon
RED BANK – Last Tuesday evening, Seldin’s Trinkets held its annual in-store holiday party for neighbors and friends.
For store owner Jamey Seldin and her husband Norman, the occasion was bittersweet. The store will be closing at the end of December when Jamey Seldin retires.
Located at the busy intersection of Front and Broad streets, the small store at 2 West Front St. has weathered the ups and downs of doing business in downtown Red Bank for 25 years.
“It’s been good and it’s been challenging,” Jamey said. “I just had a great time. I hate to see it all come to an end.”
Once the business closes, she’s looking forward to returning to her roots in Magnolia, Mississippi for a long visit with her 94-year-old mother.
Norman, who has been the buyer for Seldin’s Trinkets, will be focused on managing Jacob’s Music in Shrewsbury, the exclusive dealer for Steinway pianos in the region. A lifelong musician, he is also artist-in-residence there.
From now until the end of December, Seldin’s will be offering a 40 percent discount on all its merchandise.
The Seldins also plan to sell the display cabinets, which include a handmade display case with wooden dowels that Norman said is more than 50 years old.
Like his parents, Paul and Helen Seldin, Norman is a classically trained musician for whom jewelry became a “day job” long before he was old enough to reach the countertops in his parents’ business, Seldin’s Jewelers, which opened in 1944, its last location was 44 Broad St. Eventually, Norman ran the store for them, later opening his own jewelry business, Pandora’s Box, with two locations on opposite sides of Broad Street.
He and Jamey met while he was performing in Panama City Beach, Florida, launching a long-distance romance while Jamey was living in Atlanta. In addition to their mutual love of music, they shared an interest in jewelry. “I was working for a jewelry store,” Jamey said. “I was responsible for bringing all the diamonds in from Antwerp.”
The loose diamonds the store purchased would then be sorted for quality and weight before being made into jewelry.
After Jamey and Norman married, the couple moved back here to help the elder Seldins with their business. After Seldin’s father Paul and his stepmother Muriel decided to close their business, Norman and Jamey decided to make a fresh start with their own store.
“We just wanted a nice, comfortable store that we could have a for a long time,” Jamey said.
Their idea became Seldin’s Trinkets which, along with silver and gold earrings, pendants, rings, cuff links and other traditional keepsakes, features a collection of southwestern jewelry hand-picked by Norman and an array of gift items that include hand-carved wooden boxes, hand-crafted kaleidoscopes, geodes and sculptures.
The store is known for its unique selection of Native American jewelry, which Norman became interested in years ago when an illness kept him from touring with his band. He became a reservation trader, buying from Native American craftspeople and selling at flea markets that included Englishtown, Cowtown and Collingswood.
Prior to establishing Trinkets, Jamey also had a career in real estate here in New Jersey. And after 9/11, while continuing to manage Trinkets, she took on a second role as a trainer for new employees at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) which monitors airport security.
All in all, it’s a long way from the small town of Magnolia, Mississippi, where Jamey learned to ride horses and play sports with her two brothers and two sisters. While the family later moved to Pennsylvania, Jamey opted to return to Mississippi for college and live with her grandmother in Magnolia, while already paying her way.
“I was milking cows to ride horses,” she said.
On the wall behind the jewelry counters at Seldin’s Trinkets are photographs of many of the famous names who have crossed paths with Norman during his musical career or stopped in to buy jewelry from Jamey.
But one of the photos on the wall is a little different: It’s a picture of beloved television cowboy Roy Rogers. “My childhood idol,” Jamey said.
