Copper Lamp Fine Silver & China Dallas, Texas

GREG ARBUTINE
Apr 29
2 min read

The Copper Lamp in Dallas, Texas was a fine silver and china store that operated a full service retail store from the year 1959 to April of 2025. Their last location was at 9669 N. Central Expressway, Suite 100 Dallas, Texas. Although their bricks and mortars retail store is now closed, they still operate some parts of their business on-line through their website copperlamp.com and also on Ebay.

Just after they closed, by chance, I was in Dallas, TX on a museum visit at The Dallas Museum of Art and I had an extra hour or two afterwards. I decided to take trip up there to see their store. When I was with The Silver Queen Inc. in Tampa Bay, Florida, the Copper Lamp had been one of our wholesale dealers for several decades. I was curious to see what their store was like.

To my surprise when I reached the store, there was a sign which said "closed." It was 4pm and the internet had indicated that they were open till 5pm. I saw some people inside and opened the door. I was quickly approached by a lady saying that they were permanently closed and that the place was being packed up. I identified who I was and one of the owners invited me inside.

I spoke to Sue Ellen and later to her brother John who were the children of the original owner who had started the company back in 1959. They were both very friendly towards me and we exchanged several stories about the silver industry from the decades past. The brother and sister were both in their early 70's and were just tired of working the long 6-7 day per week hours and unfortunately, over time, their local "in-store" business had declined in sales and was making it ever more tougher to make a profit.

They had just conducted a big store closing sale over the past 3 months, but there was still quite a lot leftover. Some more inventory was planned to be liquidated to other dealers, but some of the better silver inventories were planned to be kept and eventually transitioned to an on-line only business model utilizing Ebay and possibly still their own web site.

It remains to be seen what the store's on-line presence will amount to. It is unfortunate that the store could not sustain its local presence. It's definitley a loss to the local community in Dallas, Texas. Yes, you can still of course find most everything on line now-a-days, but nothing beats seeing and feeling pieces of silver, china, crystal and gifts in person. Is the way of the world now with the very dramatic shift from "in-store" shopping to on-line only. It is what it is.

We wish the owners of Copper Lamp all the best with their retirement, semi-retirement or business pivot to on-line only in whatever capacity they transition their business model into. Best of luck!