30 Years!

As of October 1 I have had a store open on the same block in Cambridge for 30 years.  That's 30 years of selling my handmade jewelry, 30 years of making custom wedding bands and engagement rings, 30 years of providing people the opportunity to note all of the special occasions in their lives.

So much has changed in that time period and yet so much is still the same.  When I opened (with a partner, under the name Spirer Somes Jewelers) in October 1982,  gold was selling for approximately $375/oz.
The Internet didn't exist yet and most small businesses didn't have any type of computer.  There were no cell phones.  There were no Starbucks on every corner. In 2004, the partnership broke up and I reopened under my own name. Today gold is selling for $1770/oz., all of my advertising is done on the Internet, computers are an absolute necessity, we use cell phones not just for talking, but texting, shopping, web surfing, reading, watching movies, and I'm sure someone must have proposed to someone else via the cell phone at some time. And then there is Starbucks.....

But in 1982 people did buy engagement rings, wedding bands, anniversary and birthday presents, just the same as they do today.  And I got just as much of a kick out of playing a role in so many important events for my customers as I do today.  Because, honestly, that's what has always brought me the greatest joy.  Yes it's nice that I can earn a living doing something creative, challenging and fun.  But that's not what really moves me.  What does move me is that I work every day of my life with individuals, who are going to purchase something that I actually designed and made, that they are going to wear and use every single day of their lives.  Not a day goes by that I won't, in some small way, be a part of such meaningful times of my customer's lives. How can you not love that feeling?

The woman who placed the very first custom order I ever took in is still a customer to this day.  And I have made her daughter's wedding bands.  I have always had dogs in my shop and customers still come in wanting to know where the (now long dead) dog is that they remember.  I have had customers who have come in and bought second and even third wedding bands from me (yes for different marriages) because they have liked what I do so much.  That's a kind of weird compliment, but hey, I'm located in Cambridge and anything goes here.

In those 30 years I have set in jewelry: human teeth, dog teeth, a piece of the Berlin wall, rocks from the top of Mt. Everest (I think the top is a little lower now on account of it), pieces of titanium removed after operations, tyrannosaurus rex teeth, beach rocks, shells, and just about every imaginable gem and mineral.  I can't say that I have ever been bored.   Every new challenge, whether in how business runs, or in the jewelry that I make, is always interesting to me.

I actually don't like dwelling on the past very much.  However, it is worth noting a large milestone in some fashion or another. So here I am writing a blog article (blogs???---the term didn't even exist 30 years ago) about this milestone for me. But I am truly looking forward to the next 25 years of helping my customers and continuing to be that small, meaningful, part of their lives.

Pictured above is a hand built, one of a kind, 18k gold wedding band.

Reticulation

The pendant pictured here was made using a jewelry technique known as reticulation.  Reticulation is one of the more enjoyable, but random, things that can be done with metal.  Although certain gold alloys can be reticulated, the way I do it is to use a traditional 800/200 mix of fine silver and copper (sterling silver is 925/75 fine silver/copper) to actually make the pieces and then I have the ones (or parts of them) that I like cast in gold. Long ago when I first started doing reticulated pieces I had to make my own reticulating alloy to work with.  Now, since a lot of the oddball techniques that I have been doing for 40 years have become more mainstream, my refiner actually offers a reticulating silver to work with.  The process is time consuming in that you have to heat and pickle (throw the metal in an acid bath) repeatedly (10-20 times) so as to build up a layer of fine (pure) silver on the surface. This means that the melting point of the surface metal is higher than the metal underneath it.  After the heating/pickling process is finished, the piece of metal is then heated until the metal underneath begins to melt.  If you're lucky you can actually exercise some control over how the metal moves as the molten metal begins to fold up on itself but the top layer remains somewhat rigid.  If you're not lucky you can still get a lot of interesting results.  And if you're really unlucky it doesn't work at all and just rolls up into a molten mass of metal.  (Try this for a tongue twister: rolling molten mass of metal!) 

Once the silver piece is finished, I usually cut out the shape I want (sometimes the actual shape of the piece I want, sometimes a larger one that I can cut into smaller pieces).  Then it goes off to my casting company who make a mold of the piece and send me back some nice cast ones in 18k or 22k yellow gold.  The pendant above was made up because I had an old customer come in recently with some reticulated earrings I had made awhile ago and he wanted a matching pendant.  I made one for him and put the one above out into my cases.  I'm also currently in the process of trying to come up with some reticulated wedding bands for the cases.  I haven't gotten the metal doing quite what I want yet (I have a few of those rolling molten masses of metal lying around) for the rings but as soon as I do I'll get a picture posted. The picture above, incidentally is thanks to my new assistant, Kady, who it turns out is far more skilled than I am at photography (well just about everyone is more skilled than I am at it, but Kady is quite good and has a part time job actually doing some photography work as well). 

I haven't been writing for awhile because I have continued to be swamped with work.  However there is some end in sight and I am hoping to get a few new articles up soon. I plan on doing another one about selling/scrapping your jewelry as it seems to be a constant topic in the store these days, and I still hope to get an article on opals up.  Actually I have some new opal earrings that Kady took a picture of for me that would make a nice heading for it so let me see what I can do.  I also have some new South Sea pearl earrings made up that I have a nice picture of as well---they'll be headlining whatever the next article is about. 

The piece pictured above is 18k yellow gold with four .03 ct. ideal cut, "E" color, VS clarity diamonds.  Come by the shop if  you want to see it in person. 

Yes I do custom work! Scorpio sign on an Aztec sun. 18k palladium white gold background, 22k yellow gold sun, 18k palladium white gold Scorpio sign and an 18k yellow gold chain. The next time I'm actually allowed a day off, I'll actually write something.