On my April 28, 2012 post I mentioned that I had been a jeweler for so long that I had done pretty much everything at one time or another. For those of you who didn't believe me I present the following two pictures of me taken in 1973. They were taken in the workshop of the jeweler I originally trained under. The gentleman behind me in one of them was another employee, and an exceedingly talented South American trained jeweler. In the school he went to they would spend an entire year learning each technique; one year soldering, one year piercing (sawing), one year forging (hammering), etc. They would work 9-10 hour days every day while training and all of their work was done while standing at a bench. Sounds pretty excessive but the guy was one of the best trained jewelers I have ever met.
For those of you interested here's a link to what was going on in 1973: http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1973.html so you can get some idea of how things looked back then. Gold, incidentally averaged about $100/oz. in 1973. Today it's approximately $1600/oz. There were no personal computers, no laptops, no cell phones and NO ONE was writing blogs! And, as it happens, I also had a lot more hair.
No comments:
Post a Comment