Christensen Heller Gallery

They repaired my bracelet. The repair was probably a little pricier than some other places, but the woman who waited on me was very nice. Sadly, my earrings may not be repairable.
Update: my earrings were beautifully repaired at Pave Fine Jewelry, also on College, for $ 35. That is where I will go back.

A while back, my guy and I were looking for an engagement ring and happened across Christiansen Heller, knowing nothing about it. It was a coincidence that we were even in the neighborhood (we live south of SF). We thought we were looking for something simple and modern. Instead, we fell in love with a completely un-​modern estate ring. This was just one of the many stunning and very unique estate pieces that can be found here, as well as gorgeous contemporary pieces, and they also do top-​notch custom work. Eventually, we had our wedding bands made there with great results, and my husband bought me a beautiful pair of coral teardrop earrings of their design that I adore. This is a special place with pieces that are highly covetable. And if they don’t have what you want, they will make it for you.
It’s not a convenient location for me, but I’ll gladly take pieces here for repair or to have cleaned. It’s always a pleasure to visit with them and see what’s new. Jan, Madison and the rest of the team are wonderful to deal with. There’s no pressure, they’re helpful, knowledgeable, and, they offer fair pricing for best quality work, and they are just genuinely nice people, who also happen to sell beautiful jewelry.
Also, when we had our wedding bands made, they quoted a certain price for my husband’s ring. When the ring was ready, they charged us less because the price of the raw material had gone down slightly since we had received the initial quote. That price fluctuation is not something we would have known at all, but they honored it. We really appreciated that.

Jan is the only one I will ever buy diamonds from… I know very little about gems and I trust her experience and expertise whole heartedly. She picked a wonderful engagement ring for my fiancée and ensured prompt delivery to meet my timeline for proposing. She is the best!

Jan was absolutely amazing! Went in to the store knowing absolutely nothing about buying an engagement ring and she walked me through the whole process, provided the perfect advice and helped me combine an heirloom diamond with a beautiful custom platinum setting. I’ll definitely be coming back for our wedding bands. Madison, you were great too!!! You both made me feel really comfortable making the biggest and best purchase of my life.

I had a wonderful experience with the professional and artistic people at Christensen Heller Gallery.
I came in with a diamond inherited from my Granmother… and left with a contemporary pendant — done in a simple, clean, and bezel set mounting. I selected a beautiful rose gold chain and together the piece was awesome!
My sister was thrilled and I had an easy, fun, and professional experience. They are a joy to work with.

My mother has been buying jewelry from Jan since before she moved to College, so, of course I went to her to look at diamonds and engagement rings for my (then) fiancée.
Jan gave us excellent advice and had a number of unique and very beautiful rings, and we ended up choosing one of the designs she had. We wanted platinum instead of gold, so she had the artist make that for us, no muss no fuss. She also did wedding bands in platinum to go with the ring, one for me (square at her suggestion, which turns out to be pretty cool!) and one for my wife that is shaped to fit right against the engagement ring.
As a wedding gift for my wife, Jan designed a pair of earrings with keshi pearls and rubies, and over the years we have added a matching necklace and matching bracelet. She has great ideas and a wonderful eye and is always willing to adjust to suit my budget.
Jan and her staff are always kind and friendly. I look forward to having her design something new when we get to 15 or 20 years!

I recently decided to use some heirloom diamonds to make a new wedding band. Madison and Tony were wonderful!!! They were both very friendly, knowledgable, helpful and creative. Together we designed a beautiful ring which they executed on flawlessly. I now have a gorgeous ring that I absolutely treasure. I had a great experience Christian Heller through every step of the process and I can’t recommend them highly enough! In addition to their great service, their prices were reasonable and they kept me apprised of all updates to the initial cost estimate, so there were no surprises there.

Luckily my fiancé, Ty included me in the process of choosing my engagement ring when he proposed this past holiday! There are so many unique and beautiful jewelers in the area, that choosing just one became kind of overwhelming, especially considering I was very unsure of what kind of style I really wanted. When we first walked in, Jan greeted us and immediately started helping us problem solve through what I would really enjoy wearing. She tuned in to what I liked about each ring and eventually directed me towards a wonderful artist in New Orleans. She contacted him and had him send over several different samples of various designs to try. Once we had that part figured out, I kind of stepped out of the picture to let me fiancé choose all of the finishing parts. She was so patient with him and helped him customize it the way he wanted! He probably met with her at least 5 times before all was said and done. After he gave me the ring, he insisted we go back and say hello and so she could see me wearing it. Thank you, Jan, for all of your help! My wring is beautiful and the special care that went into the design makes it even more lovely!

Hi Jan, if I could give this place another one-​star rating, I would. Not only was it clear that we were in your store to purchase a ring to replace another ring that could not be resized, it was also clear that we were going to make a purchase that very day. Meteorite rings cannot be resized, so we needed a replacement promptly before our wedding in November. This was explained to you whilst we were at the counter. Thusly creating an easy sale situation for you and your store. But your attitude and general disrespect of my Fiancé and I as customers made the decision to walk out an easy one.
Finally, it shouldn’t matter whether or not we were in your store to purchase a ring, or to get a few questions answered. There is no reason to disrespect your customers, and to manufacture a story and use it as an excuse to justify those actions is just pathetic. A simple apology would have been acceptable.

Extraordinarily beautiful jewelry, including designs from Chris Ploof. My fiancée and I ordered a pair of Chris Ploof rings from Jan and they are absolutely beautiful!
They did a nice job resizing a pair of platinum engagement and wedding rings with complex hand engraving on the bands. Jan even kindly adding sizing beads to one of the rings that I purchased from her at no cost.
Wonderful people, store, and jewelry. Highly recommended!

Came here with my fiancé to get wedding bands. His was a pretty standard order, just store bought white gold band. Easy one and done. no frills.
I wanted to use my grandmother’s old wedding band. but cut it in half and leave a half for my sister to use at some point in the future. Not only did the goldsmith do a RIDICULOUSLY beautiful job on my grandmother’s band, but Jan also looked through some of the other heirlooms we brought and suggested we use one of the bands from my fiancé’s grandmother’s collection. She had a vision that at first I didn’t even understand, but just let her run with it. the end result is two absolutely gorgeous bands that are very special to the two of us. I couldn’t of even imagined my bands looking as good as they did when I came to pick them up today.
Thank you thank you thank you!
Seriously, COULD NOT be happier!

This shop has gorgeous pieces. They are unique in design and there are so many options. They took such good care of me. What I loved was how inviting and warm the shop was. This is a place I will certainly go back to.

Everyone at Christen Heller Gallery was super helpful in the quest for wedding rings, especially Jan, she’s the best. She showed patience as I tried on every ring in the store and knew exactly which ring I came back for when we finally returned.
We didn’t know what to expect in looking for wedding rings and Jan was extremely helpful in giving us options and giving feedback without being judgmental or pushy. Everyone there was totally gay friendly too! We ended up getting both of our rings at Christensen Heller Gallery even after shopping around. We are completely thrilled with the rings we got and happy to have gone through the process with such lovely folks.

My husband and I just bought our wedding bands here two months ago. His band happened to be the right size, but mine had to be resized two sizes up. Not only were they able to do this, but it only took them a day (even though they originally quoted me at a week)! Jan and her granddaughter were so helpful and attentive. I would recommend CHG to anyone and everyone looking for any jewelry, especially a wedding band. I will definitely return next time I am in the market for jewelry.

My husband and I got our wedding bands here and now consider them our family jeweler!!! We found out about them on Unilocal and never looked anywhere else. We found exactly what we wanted… vintage style and unique jewelry with amazing customer service. Since then we have recommended two other couples, who have also loved them and bought their bands there. I highly highly recommend this place! I go in often to clean my jewelry and check out the new inventory. They have a beautiful selection and it’s very hard not to buy something or want to buy something every time!

I didn’t know shopping for a custom piece of jewelry could be so much fun– or so stress-​free– until working with the wonderful folks at Christensen Heller Gallery. I stopped in because of the dazzling window display as I was walking to BART, and I think I must have spent an hour trying on half the rings in their case. Baird was so patient with me, and didn’t seem even slightly annoyed that I clearly wasn’t ready to buy anything. After checking the Unilocal reviews, I realized that this was THE SPOT for custom wedding bands. I went back again and this time spent an hour or so with Jan, again trying on ring after ring, asking lots of questions, and not buying anything. Finally, I went back in with my fiancé and we started the process of designing something totally custom. We went completely unconventional– multiple small stones, different colors, different shapes. It sounds crazy, but I am in love with the results.
They will work with your crazy requests, your budget (whatever it may be), and your time frame, and the results will be absolutely beautiful. We’ll be going back the next time we need a piece of jewelry, and I’ve already started sending friends. Honestly, skip the big jewelry outlets and the chain stores– this is SO much better.

What is wrong with these guys? Its like they actually LIKE jewelry here! They are enthusiastic about their collection and seemingly spend time vetting their pieces like it’s art or something. What gives?!
If you yearn for coffee stained eternally bored weirdos with overly dilated eyes and no outlook on life to sell you your engagement ring, then you have come to the WRONG place. Go back to the shopping malls or pawn shops.
But if you want helpful, insightful personalities who design & fabricate, collect and keep educated about that which they sell and go through great pains to have a concise but great collection and overall give a darn; Christensen Heller is your place.
Are you a young couple that knows slightly more than ZERO about getting an engagement ring? Go here, talk to Baird or Jan for 20 minutes, and you will leave not only educated but STOKED about it all.
You don’t have to be the Count of Västergötland or Larry Ellison’s secret mistress to afford something unique and wonderful from these guys either. Do what I did; come here, spend some time, then go see what a disappointment all the others places are, then come right back. Or, you know, save yourself the time and just trust ‘em!

I’ve been coming to Jan for over 20 years! We bought our wedding bands from her and it’s just gotten better from there. All my jewelry purchases are through Jan! Her knowledge and expertise are amazing! I was robbed of much of my jewelry and Jan and Baird went way beyond the call of duty in helping me deal with the insurance forms for jewelry replacement value. I can’t say enough positive things about this store!

Looked far and wide for a particular ring for a special lady but nada. Came into CHG and still nada but I did like what they had on display. What to do?
Enter Baird — the graduate gemologist! Baird was very cool and asked me what I was looking for. After giving him some details, he said he’d give me a call if anything came in. The next day, Baird told me that 3 estate rings just arrived that fit my request. Perfect!
When I came to check them out, they were exactly what I was looking for. Baird was incredibly knowledgeable and gave me a lot of background info on each ring. He didn’t pressure me at all but made me feel comfortable with the final purchase.
If you’re looking for a special jewelry gift, give CHG a try and ask for Baird!

Don’t shop anywhere else for jewelry!!!
My husband and I started dating when we were only 14 years old and by the time we were ready to get married, had just bought our first home. That didn’t stop my fiancé from choosing the most beautiful (and expensive!) Van Craeynest ring to get me. Unfotunately, we did not have the budget to pay for it outright and went jeweler to jeweler trying to find ANYONE that would let us make payments towards it… until we called Van Craeynest directly and were refered to Christensen Heller Gallery, where we met Baird.
Baird is the nicest person you will ever meet. He worked with us down to the tiniest detail to make that ring perfect… and ours!!! Three years after we first walked through the doors of that amazing shop on College Avenue, Ryan walked out with a ring box (that I was not allowed to look inside!!! He didn’t want me to see the finished ring until he officially proposed).
Baird has ever since been our family jeweler, doing repairs and maintenance on anything I might dig up. Christensen Heller Gallery is the only place we will ever buy ANY jewlery again!!! They are inclredibly creative, talented people who know how to help their customers. I speak from experience too! There is little I haven’t already challenged them with!
When our family gave us our diamond as an engagement present (a weird tradition! Don’t ask!!) Baird was happy to fit it into our ring. And when metal prices shot up through the roof just weeks before the wedding was scheduled (when we were making what should have been the final installment needed to order the matching wedding band for my engagement ring) Baird found a band in stock that he was able to fit to our ring perfectly while matching our budget! When I decided to get my fiancé a Meteorite-​set-​in white gold wedding band, Baird found us the perfect one from Chris Ploof. Later, when we decided to add a tiny diamond to my wedding band, Baird took care of that too (and looking at it, you would never guess that it was added later)!! When an antique silver ring my best friend bought me in Scotland cracked, he fixed it flawlessly!!!
Honestly, my husband and I have never set foot in any other jewelry stores since discovering this hidden treasure!