RETAIL : Jeweler Closing Shop After 46-Year Career, but He Won’t Retire

After 46 years, Newport Beach jeweler J.C. Humphries is going to call it a career.

The certified gemologist has cleaned countless watches, appraised countless diamonds, even waited on local legend John Wayne. Now he will close his store in the Courtyards shopping center at Harbor and Newport boulevards in a month or so, after his going-out-of-business sale has run its course.

“I get a tear in my eye every now and then thinking about it,” said Humphries, a World War II fighter pilot who won’t reveal his age.

Retire? Hardly. Humphries says he has accumulated quite a few commercial properties over the years and plans to manage them from his Newport Beach bay-view home.

Life wasn’t always so easy. Business was fair at first in Costa Mesa, where he opened in 1946--the war was over, and former servicemen were buying wedding rings for their brides. But a recession arrived three years later.

“I just worked harder and harder,” he said, often putting in 20 hours a day between the shop and home, where he would take apart watches into the wee hours.

“It’s a beautiful business,” he said. “There’s always something new.”

He said he has no regrets. Well, maybe one: None of his three daughters are interested in taking over the business.