It was winter and the snow fell thick and silent around the store. We were up to our ears in custom work, but never too busy to turn away one more.

A woman walked in with a ring that needed some repair. After examining it, we pointed out to her the worn shank, broken bridgework, missing prongs. It was a wreck. Repairing it would be almost ridiculous, as it would be primarily composed of solder when complete.

…but rebuilding it, now that was an option.

The sapphire center was still in excellent condition, one diamond was missing but could be matched, and the setting was just not her style anymore anyhow. Sorry we don’t ...

What does one do, exactly, when one has multiple stones to put into a design? When you have sapphires, diamonds, and an errant garnet? What about when you have several stones larger than the rest?

Well, if you’re obsessive compulsive about math, your brain sorts the stones out into a pattern. If the number of stones happens to be easily divisible by four, you have a square just begging to be carved!

The garnet that belonged to the customer wound up being too abraded to use, so we found a lovely cropped-corner square to fit in the center, and this entire necklace just came together with ease and grace.

Pardon us if we̵ ...

Whether it was the advent of spring, the task of cleaning my outdated wardrobe, or just a lifelong fixation with the color green, I had to build this ring this past month.

Having recently acquired a couple of cat’s eye chrysoberyls, I was anxious to use them in some stunning piece. I think we pulled it off, don’t you?

I began with a simple bezel of extruded blue wax. This is a softer wax, perfect for forming. Bending the wax to within a millimeter tolerance of the stone, I secured it on the bottom with a more rigid piece of Ruby Red wax, extendin ...

I’ll always remember my first time at the wheel. I was a short, scrawny, 9 year old girl with straggly, brown hair. I did not know what I was doing.

Zzz… zzz…zzz, went the hard, abrasive wheel, as I gouged deep, rough valleys into the thin, silver, practice ring, that was just cast and cleaned. Trying to take down the casting sprue. Then the ring slipped off the wheel and my finger received the same treatment. Zzz… into my soft, not yet calloused finger tip. I received a little instruction from my teacher, my dad. He showed me how to firmly but gently, roll the ring into the wheel to keep the nice ...

We usually know them the moment they walk in the door.

Their shoulders stoop ever so slightly, their gait is unnatural, often ashamed.

Some have forced cheery smiles on their faces, others have a defiant stance, ready to spar. But they all seem to have the same air about them- they’ve fallen on harder times, and they are in need of money.

They come to sell us their gold.

Every day we see them now, with the downturn in the economy and the steep rise in the price of gold. Every single one has a need, every one has a story;

“Need to pay my property taxes…”

“Getting divorced, need lawyer money, ring isn’t worth anything anyhow…”

...

The year is 1,200 BC. A man sweats in front of a furnace, a huge pair of bellows resting in his scarred hands. Beside him is a scorched earthen bowl packed hard with sand. He has spent hours shaping a plug of beeswax into an intricate crescent moon shape for a wealthy woman. Afterwards he tamped clean sand around the wax, delicately at first, then harder and harder as the shape became covered.

He places the bowl into the fire, resting it against an earthen wedge so that it is tilted sideways. The heat burns his face and brings tears to his eyes, but he is used to it now. The fire wanes and the man works the bellows again, forcing oxygen into the blaze with swift and powerful strokes. The small plug of beeswax, visib ...

Gold at nearly a thousand US dollars an ounce. Platinum over two thousand. Silver, incredibly enough, at twenty dollars an ounce.

Did we honestly think we would see these prices this early on?

The falling value of the dollar coupled with instability in the markets has set this industry on its ear. Then we add low mine production to the mixture, and suddenly a reachable commodity becomes just one more thing that’s harder for the common man to acquire. We’ve had a spike like this before, but not with such a steady upward trend. Is it going to stay this way? Who knows. I, for one, think it will.

Rather than bemoan the price- which I can do nothing about- I want to address the situation ...

A couple stands across the case before me. Simple, hardworking, salt of the earth people. The woman has just had her ring painstakingly repaired by us- worn prongs rebuilt, a missing side diamond replaced, the surface refinished. She gazes it at it in wonder,

“I’ve never seen it so bright!” She exclaims, “It must have been extra dirty. It’s as beautiful as the day we were first married!”

“So are you.” Her husband says softly behind her, barely audible.

-Cue heart melt here-

The woman blushes a bit, glances at his own matching band, and grimaces.

“Oh, honey look at yours. It’s so dirty compared to mine no ...

Having apprenticed under a half-crazed master jeweler, I have grown to be closed minded towards new ideas. Wait. Let me rephrase that. I have learned to be closed minded towards any good idea that anyone but myself has come up with. So having said that, let me begin.

Centrifugal casting was THE way and the ONLY way to cast precious metal. It took me some time to learn, but after a year, I believe I had acquired the skill to complete a successful casting. All the while, there was still a small spark in the back of my mind telling me that there were other- possibly more efficient- ways of doing things.

“JASON! Go heat up the car! i want to look at 800 acres not too far from here, where we can build our ...