The jewelry business is referred to as the "forever business" because gems can be kept virtually forever, often passing generation to generation. But sadly for Hallmark Jewelers at Ala Moana Center, the kama'aina family business will close Sunday after 97 years and three generations of operation.

"It's just the times," said Isaac Ishihara, company president and grandson of watchmaker Gihei Ishihara, who established the business first known as G. Ishihara in 1912 on Kaua'i.

Ishihara said the economy and finances played a part in the decision, as did the challenge of maintaining a company deeply rooted in the past with old-fashioned practices of writing receipts by hand and making repairs for customers.

"We've seen a lot of change," he said. "We're old-school, and maybe we didn't make the transition to the electronic age as we could have."

Ishihara said he will most miss the people connected with the company, including longtime loyal customers and roughly a dozen employees, some of whom have been with Hallmark Jewelers for 20 or 30 years.

"We appreciate their confidence and trust. It was an honor for us," he said.

Bruce Bucky, president of the Hawaii Jewelers Association, said the industry is particularly challenged in surviving the worst recession since statehood. "In the jewelry industry, you're dealing with an item that is not needed," he said.

Bucky, who owns Hildgund Jewelers, a longtime kama'aina retailer with six stores, said many in the business are focused on keeping afloat until better economic times return. It's understandable that some jewelers, like many retailers in general, won't make it.

"It's a sign of the times," he said.

The business joins a list of local companies that have closed their doors during the current economic downturn. That includes Nick's Fishmarket, the Haleiwa Supermarket, Jackson Lincoln Mercury Isuzu, and Aloha Airlines.

Scores of other companies have had to lay off workers.

Hallmark Jewelers links back to Kekaha, Kaua'i, where Gihei Ishihara, who was born in Hiroshima, left the blacksmith trade on the Garden Island to become a watchmaker.

In 1927, the merchant moved to O'ahu to open a store Downtown on 'A'ala Street. A decade later, the store relocated to Hotel Street near River Street, and son Yoshimasa Ishihara joined the business renamed G. Ishihara & Son Inc.

The Hallmark Jewelers name was adopted in 1952 along with a relocation to Hotel and Bishop streets. Yoshimasa Ishihara expanded the business with a second store in the newly built second phase of Ala Moana Center in 1966. The store was the first tenant on the diamondhead side of the shopping center.

The Downtown store closed after the business grew at the Ala Moana location, though most customers to this day — 75 percent to 80 percent — are local residents despite closer to half the overall traffic at the mall being tourists.

Isaac Ishihara, who worked in the store as a kid, became a certified gemologist and about nine years ago assumed the helm of the company after his father became ill. Yoshimasa Ishihara, who was believed to be the oldest working jeweler in Honolulu when he retired in 2000 at the age of 84, died in 2002.

"It's been a part of my life all my life," Ishihara said, adding that had business been better there would have been a fourth generation to carry on the family company.