History
In 1946, Bill and Roberta Zimmer bought a small downtown jewelry store in Wilmington, North Carolina and changed the name to Reeds Jewelers. Later, the Zimmers opened a store in Whiteville, Jacksonville, and other cities in both North and South Carolina. By 1979, Reeds Jewelers maintained two dozen retail outlets. Bill Zimmer and his wife Roberta ran the downtown Wilmington store and built their business while they also raised their family; all four children worked in the family business while growing up. Alan Zimmer joined Reeds Jewelers as executive vice president in 1981 and took charge of merchandising. He officially became president and CEO in 1985.
In December 1986 Reeds Jewelers sold 600,000 shares on the NASDAQ, trading under the symbol REEDS. The company’s share of the proceeds, $3.7 million dollars were used in the acquisition of Dreifus Jewelry Company of Memphis, a nineteen store chain in the Southeast and Midwest, and a year later Gray's Jewelers, Inc., a five store chain based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 1995 Reeds Jewelers purchased Melart Jewelers, a mid-Atlantic based jeweler operating stores in Maryland, DC, and Pennsylvania. In 1998 Reeds Jewelers moved to the American Stock Exchange and traded using the symbol RJI. In February 2004 the company returned to private ownership by the Zimmer family, making it the largest family owned jeweler in America.
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