Small Business Owner Has Thousands Of Dollars Worth Of Unique Jewelry Stolen
AURORA, Colo. (CBS4) - Police are searching for those who stole thousands of dollars worth of unique jewelry.
Hundreds of rings made from rare and often expensive antique spoons were stolen. The designs and shapes are very distinct and the owners are asking everyone to keep an eye out for them.
To some the old spoons may be just that, but for Tami Miller and her family they're much more. She owns a company called Spoonier and they sell their items online through ETSY.com.
"It's pretty devastating," Miller said.
She spends countless hours collecting and transforming the sterling silver spoons into unique pieces of jewelry. When she left work on Friday her inventory was put away and the doors to her workshop in Aurora were locked. When she came back the next day she discovered more than 500 items were missing.
"My last four years of really hard work are just taken by somebody, and they didn't just take some of the store, they took everything," Miller said.
Miller estimates the retail value of the stolen goods was somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000, but melted down she says thieves would get far less -- possibly $1,500.
"It's a small fraction of what the time, the love, the passion that was put into finding them and making them," Miller said.
The rings themselves are very distinct and would likely be easy to spot.
"Half of them, if not more than half of them, are more than 100 years old."
She hopes everyone will keep an eye out but knows her best bet for recovering her family's livelihood rests on one thing.
"The only person who can make a difference is the person who took them."
Miller is offering a $1,000 reward for information that helps lead to an arrest.
Anyone with information is asked to call Aurora police.
