Bags to Riches

Olsen Drive resident Marc Rothenberg says he didn't expect the company he launched in 2005 to grow as quickly as it has—annual sales have burst through the million dollar mark in recent months—but thanks to economic insecurity, Intercept Jewelry Care is going great.

"I didn't know gold was going to go up and silver was going to be so popular," he said in the office of the company's new Branchburg warehouse.

But the price of gold did skyrocket after the financial collapse in 2008, which increased consumer interest in silver jewelry—and unlike gold, silver tarnishes, making Rotherberg's proprietary line of anti-tarnish shipping bags a necessity for vendors selling silver jewelry on TV shopping networks.

"It's a quality-control issue for the vendors," Rothenberg said, noting that shoppers aren't keen on receiving tarnished silver jewelry so his products have eliminated service headaches for the companies selling on QVC, HSN and Jewelry TV by eliminating tarnishing by using a product patented by Lucent Technologies called Intercept Technology in a somewhat new way.

Rothenberg came across his idea the old-fashioned way: he saw a product in use in a different way that fed an idea.

He had been working at his family's jewelry store in Milburn—he took over the as the fourth-generation member in his family in 2001—when a customer showed him a bag with some silver coins in it. The customer mentioned the bag prevents the coins from tarnishing and thought they could work for jewelry as well.

Rothenberg investigated the product, lined up manufacturers and launched Intercept Jewelry Care in 2005, and promptly left the retail business behind.

"It had just gotten tougher and tougher," he said of the retail store. "My father used to say, 'We're not in the jewelry business, we're in the finance business'—because we carried so much for our customers."

He quickly found a reliable customer for the products at Home Shopping Network, and soon, all of the major networks were recommending Intercept Jewelry Care bags to their vendors.

If you've ordered any silver items from a TV program, odds are the plastic bag it came in had a copper-colored film on one side and came from Rothenberg's business.

Now, the company is expanding into consumer lines—jewelry bags in various colors and fabrics that still protect against tarnishing, Ziploc-style plastic bags and even specially-treated boxes, under the Tarnish Tamer brand.

The business has grown to three employees, with Marketing Director Sheila Dolan seeking out new potential clients and Samantha Lordi managing fulfillment of orders. Rothenberg expects another hire is in the not-to-distant future, as orders continue to grow and the company expands its consumer products sales.

"I'm probably going to have to hire someone just to sit there and count (bags for the orders)," he said. 

Rothenberg, who lives with his wife Jeanne and their three kids, is humble about his success, but adds, "It took a lot of faith."

"I'm not really a religious person, but I feel very blessed," he said of his success.

Ths article was edited to clarify the operations of Mr. Rothenberg's businesses and websites, and to specify the name of Lucent's Intercept Technology.