How did we get started? Dumb luck. That is the honest answer.
Before Kent’s Tools became a beloved hub for jewelers, lapidarists, and hobbyists from around the world, we were just two people—Kent and Salle—with experience in buying and selling tools, and a knack for spotting unusual opportunities. For fifteen years, we worked in the new and used tool business, dealing in everything from industrial equipment to secondhand hand tools. We understood how to evaluate, buy, and move merchandise—but we did not yet know that our future lay in beads, gemstones, and the international lapidary community.
That changed about twenty-five years ago, thanks to a quirky chain of connections that began with a friend of a friend of a friend—the kind of twist that only seems to happen in Tucson. Through that connection, we ended up purchasing a storage locker packed full of beads. It was a mix of high-end gemstone strands and Mardi Gras–style costume beads by the thousands…