What makes jewelry good

Custom vs stock and why choose custom.

I’ve made over 3000 custom engagement rings over the years and can make about 150/ year. We use the most advanced modern equipment with an eye for everything that’s been done before.

For over 100,000 years, since Neanderthals started ritually burying their dead, jewelry has been a part of the human condition. Tribes have identified their members through all manner of shells, stones, bones, and claws as adornment. It’s the jewelry in the ground that often is the measuring stick by which modern humans measure the sophistication of an ancient society. What will your jewelry say about you?

We live in an age where we have access to the breadth of all that humans have ever held dear from our greatest treasures of empires to tiny enclaves of tribal people still living hunter gathering lifestyles in remote parts of the world. With all this amazing inspiration to pull from. The brilliant smithing of the romans and Byzantines, the gold work of the Vatican reliquaries, and the transcendent mastery of Faberge’ and Van Cleef, we have examples of mastery and skill available through a simple google image search that the most experienced of museum curators could not have dreamed of even 50 years ago. I have held in my hands a coronation egg, and a platinum grand master chime Patek Phillipe. I have also held Greek coins and Mississipian bird stones. A reverence for mastery is necessary to create new things that might stand the test of time.

Factory labor vs hand crafted with love.

I’ve dedicated my life to getting good… really good at working with metal. It’s been how I make my living, but I would (And often do) do it for free. There’s plenty of ways to get cheaper products than to buy them from a craftsman… Henry Ford taught us about assembly lines and manufacturing efficiently and well. A ring is not a car… You don’t want it to be the same as all the others… Unless you do, and then maybe there’s a store in the corner of the mall that will suit you fine.

Made in America with fair labor standards for your damn wedding rings.

I’ve spent a calendar year of my life over several trips in Asia. I’ve seen manufacturing that was incredible in it’s efficiency and the skill of the humans doing it. I’ve spent months sitting next to smiths in Thailand and Indonesia who are artists and wonderful craftsmen and humans. It’s humbling to say the least… I do not live in Asia, and I don’t want to price my goods requiring me to pay $5/ day to the human’s making it. This is wedding jewelry. It’s a symbol of your lifelong commitment to another human and it should be made by someone who is happy and likes their job. I feel that this measure of all products would make the world a better place. Let’s start with jewelry… From mine to finger, we should all consider that the cheapest possible thing is not kind to other humans or our planet. I’m not advocating being a sucker or overpaying for the sake of charity, but if you can’t afford living wages in luxury goods, what sort of luxury are they?