Elegance Defined
Three Generations and More Than 70 Years with Field’s Jewelers…
Daniel Clover loves gemstones. A jewelry appraiser at Field’s Jewelers for 30 years, you’d think he would have reached a plateau of interest in diamonds and emeralds and rubies by now, but he still avidly pursues his industry’s trade shows, hoping to see something new, and still experiences excitement when a hopeful customer brings a rare and precious heirloom to his store for appraisal.
“It is a job, for sure, but I take passion in something that comes in, something that I haven’t seen before, or not in a long time,” he says. “Like, somebody brought in a really nice ladies’ emerald and diamond ring. It was really one of a kind piece, so that was cool.”
To appraise an offering like this, he will examine it under a microscope, and he will describe exactly what determines its value from the three Cs: The cut, the clarity and the color. “With diamonds, the round, brilliant cut is the brightest cut,” he says. “Over the years, they’ve come to the exact proportions and number of facets that reflect the light back to the eye at maximum brilliancy.”
So the brighter, the better. A fancy cut, which will change the shape of the stone, will lose some of the brightness (and therefore value). Clarity refers to impurities, called inclusions, found in all diamonds formed in the mantle of the earth as they mix with other materials. Looking at the color of diamonds, the best is no color at all. Of course, different standards apply to emeralds and rubies.
Clover came by his expertise in jewelry via two main avenues, the most apparent reflected in two framed certificates hanging on the wall at the store. One is his official jeweler registration with the American Gem Society. And below that, a certificate of achievement, 2024-2025, also from the gem society, noting that he’s ready for anything jewelry-related that he might face this year.
But it was his hands-on work at the store that set his life’s path.
Field’s Jewelers is a family-owned enterprise, now more than 70 years old, three generations deep. Carl Fields opened the first shop in downtown Redding in 1953. His son Ronald Field took over the family business for the second generation. Ron married Linda Clover, and became stepfather to her young son. Soon that boy was working at the store, exercising abilities long lost by the towering grownups.
“They hired me to crawl around and find gemstones that had fallen out and they couldn’t find, little diamonds, little rubies,” Clover recalls. “Really, that was my first job. I didn’t get paid for it. And then I graduated to making bows for wrapping presents, for a nickel a bow. My brother did that too.”
Ryan Field, son of Ron and Linda, joined the family 11 years after 3-year-old Dan had been married in. By that time, the older brother had begun what he calls his “first real job”: Engraving, using a rare, decades-old pantograph etcher to inscribe anything from trophies to wedding rings. When Ryan was old enough, Clover taught him how to use it.
As he had followed his older brother in the store, the youngest Field also set out beyond the shop to hone his skills. He studied business at a school in Chico, fully intent in applying what he learned to the family store in Redding. After studying there for a couple of years, he found work at someone else’s family jewelry store, this one maybe four generations deep.
Clover’s family knew of Clifford’s Jewelry in Chico because they had been open for somewhere around 100 years. They were all too happy to welcome Field into their store, where he once again engraved rings and things on a vintage, hand-operated pantograph etcher. He learned things beyond what he had picked up in Redding, so by the time he returned home, he truly knew the business of jewelry.
Today, Ryan and his brother, along with Dan’s wife Chris, own and operate Field’s Jewelers. Dan greets customers and appraises. Ryan meets customers and engraves. Chris, a full-time hospice nurse, works marketing for the store. She designed the store’s logo, and it is her face that smiles at the public online.
Bailey the golden retriever and Leo the cat make themselves at home.
As a member of the Field family, Dan says for a long time now he has had to explain to people how a Clover fits with Field. “It’s kind of weird, because as I grew up I was a Clover Field,” he says with a chuckle. “That’s my stepdad’s business that he grew up in with his parents. They gave me the nickname Cloverfield, which I thought was cool.”
He stresses that he’s always been a Clover among Fields, because that is the way he wanted it. The family did at one point offer him a chance to change his name. “I was like, no, I’m still loyal to my dad. So I’m a Clover,” he says.
He adds with a smile, “I always liked to say I had two dads.” •
Field’s Jewelers • 1738 Churn Creek Road, Redding
Hours: Tuesday-Friday, 9:30 am-5:30 pm
(530) 221-0230 • www.fieldsjewelers.com
