In the 10 years since turning his hobby into a business, jeweller Bob Wyber has provided a refreshingly downbeat approach to customer relations.
"I never make any effort to sell anything to anyone," he says.
One aspect of shopping that "immensely irritates" him is over-zealous sales people, so he has taken it upon himself to be the antithesis of such behaviour.
Customers in his store are left to browse quietly.
If they come within a comfortable talking distance of his work bench, he lets them know he can help answer any questions they may have.
Haggling is not an option. He cannot be bothered and his prices are reasonable anyway, he says.
Neither are commissions. The reason for this is simple - he cannot draw, and he believes most people asking for commissioned work do not know what they want and just want a free design service.
"Time-wasting" technology is also not an option.
His shop is free from fax machines and computers, which enables him to produce "huge amounts of work" rather than waste time responding to emails.
"People either like my attitude or they don't. I don't care.
"I eat tonight whether I sell anything today or not."
Whatever people think of his attitude, Wyber creates unique pieces that are things of beauty from his workspace at the back of the store - which is also unfussy.
Wyber started making jewellery 20 years ago as a "stress-relief hobby" from his job as the Dunedin City Council's chief city planner.
He learned his craft on night courses at Otago Polytechnic and experimented at home.
Because of his inability to draw, Wyber was attracted to items found in nature, such as feathers, shells and seed-pods, which enabled him to make prototypes.
The other recurring theme in his work is rocks and minerals, which stems from his interest in geology.
"I let the material dictate how it ends up. The stones tell me what they need doing," he says.
Knowing where his pieces have come from is important to Wyber. He purchases his boulder opals directly from individual miners in Australia so knows "there is no-one clipping the ticket on the way through", and his pounamu and New Zealand gemstones are cut from old collection material.
The silver and gold he uses comes from a New Zealand metal merchant who mostly refines scrap, broken jewellery, old coins etc, while the copper is recycled telephone line, water pipe and water cylinder offcuts.
After leaving the council and the "horrendously" time-consuming work, he "got really bored" doing almost nothing.
"Then I decided I may as well turn my hobby into a business."
Wyber could not find anywhere suitable to sell his jewellery so set up the store and continued to supply stockists around New Zealand.
Ten years on, the store is going well, thanks to loyal customer support, which has enabled him to have 10 years of "self-indulgence, making only what I wanted to make".
But the sight of him hunched over his workbench, working on his next creation and leaving his customers in peace, will soon be gone from Lower Stuart St.
Declining health means he can not "take the risk" of signing another lease so its doors will close on February 20.
He will continue making jewellery from home for his regular clientele in Dunedin and to supply his out-of-town stockists.
"I'm just winding it down to going away," he says.
He will miss just two things about the shop. One is the daily walk to work then home again, and the other is "some of the really interesting people" who visit.
But his view on shutting the shop is simple and straightforward. There's no fuss.
"Everything comes to an end."
- Contemporary Jewellery Gallery, 91 Stuart St, Dunedin.
