Restoring Antiques and More on Custom Work

Back in early November a customer of mine brought in half of an antique pin.  She had lost the male part of the pin (the piece with the pin stem on it) but still had the female piece.  She wanted me to make up the piece that was missing based on the existing piece and a picture of the original pin.  Fortunately she had good records and had taken a picture for insurance purposes so I not only had the original half but a good shot of what I needed to replicate.  The piece was from the late 1800's and in those days everything was hand built so it was kind of right up my alley.  However there were a number of issues.  The first is that coral is not actively being taken out of the ocean anymore so I needed to find a piece that was both approximately the same color and large enough to carve a duplicate from.  Fortunately I know a lot of people in the industry and I was able to get a referral to one of the few people left in the United States who might actually have something.  Nothing is easy in this business though so even though I was able to make contact with him quickly and he was fairly sure he had something that would work he was on his way overseas on a business trip.  After a couple of weeks I was able to get the piece out to him and he was able to come up with a piece that turned out to be an excellent match.  Then of course I had to get it carved and I'm not a gem carver so I brought it to a jeweler friend of mine to work on. By this time it was December and he and I were both in the middle of our busy season so needless to say I didn't see a finished carving for quite awhile.  Once I got it back I then had to rebuild the structure that actually held the whole thing together.  It proved to be an interesting challenge because while it might look somewhat straightforward it was anything but. It was white gold on the top and yellow gold on the back so it had to be completely hand assembled.  Every time I would put another section together it would look wrong and I'd have to go study the piece under the microscope again to figure out what I was missing and, sure enough, there was always some little thing they had done that wasn't immediately apparent. However I got through it and finished it up.  I don't think anyone could have made a piece any closer to the original than I did as you can see from the pictures. This is a great example of the type of custom work (or restoration work) that I can do, which leads me to the second half of this article. 

My Favorite Engagement Ring

I've been getting a lot of gents in lately asking for custom engagement rings.  I've talked about custom work before in a number of other blog articles but I'd like to go over a few things again.  I have a lot of people coming in with pictures on their phones of pieces that their significant others have posted on their Pinterest page or something similar.  A good deal of the pictures look nothing at all like what I normally make up.  Mind you, this isn't always a problem as my skills (see the first half of this article) are pretty broad.  However if someone is looking at a specific, unique design and that is exactly what they want I will not make it up for two reasons.  The first is that there are copyright issues involved and I will not break copyright.  Whether or not a copyright sign is attached to a picture, unique designs are given copyright the moment they are created.  That's the law.  No one should be copying my designs and I'm not going to copy theirs.  The second reason is that even if I make up something similar to the picture it will never be exactly the same (actually I can't legally make it exactly the same) and it will not be what the picture is.  If someone wants a specific design then you should go to the company that makes that design and buy it from them.  Additionally you should consider that I will always be more expensive because I'm starting from scratch and the company who made the thing probably has a mold already made up for it. 

Now if you are bringing me in a series of photos to show me the general style that she likes, I'm happy to look into making up something with a similar feel.  But it's not going to be the same and, again, since I'm starting from scratch it's going to be more expensive than most of the existing designs.  But you should also remember that while every piece I make up is going to adhere to the same exacting, high quality standard that I insist upon, pieces that are similar to what I already make are going to be more personalized than something that looks a whole lot like a commercially made piece out there.  So if you haven't shown your significant other my website and blog, think about doing that to see if there is anything I do that she might love.  If she's fixated on a halo ring, unless you want some unusual gemstone (like a magnificent purple sapphire---or yes that great alexandrite), I'm probably not the best place to start.

Another Reason to Shop Small

Freshwater pearl and pink sapphire squid pendant

I was reading the Boston Globe on Saturday and one of the front page articles was about how many people have been affected by data breaches in the last year.  More than 1.3 million (yes million!) people had their personal information stolen through data breaches.  But here's the great deal if you shop at a small bricks and mortar shop like mine.  Nothing can ever be stolen!  The only customer information we keep on our computers is your name, address, phone number and email---all of which are readily available on line to anyone.  We don't have social security numbers, credit card numbers, passwords or anything like that.  If you phone in an order and we take a credit card number from you it never goes into the computer.  It gets used and shredded promptly. 
We also only have one credit card terminal and it's kept behind my cases so no one could possibly install a skimmer on it. 

So just in case you were needing another reason to shop at a small shop like mine, today this seems to be one of the best ones!

Happy Valentine's Day!

18k pink and yellow gold heart pin with ruby

There are two really good reasons why you should give jewelry as a Valentine's Day gift.  The first is that you don't get fat from jewelry!  No matter what, when you get on the scale on February 15, even if you're wearing your new present, you will weigh the same as you did the day before. 

The second is that jewelry doesn't wilt and die a week after you get it!  I guarantee this.  Ten years from now it will still be alive and functional (unless you're like Morticia Addams and you've saved the dead roses for that long). 

But if you absolutely must give roses for the holiday how about considering some like this:

22k roses and garnets

I'm just saying...............

The Ultimate Compliment

As I have often said in this blog I like to make and sell my jewelry in good part because of the meanings behind it for my customers.  It's great to know how important a part I play in many of my customer's lives.  Unfortunately some days are more bittersweet than anything else. 

The other day one of my long term customers came by the shop and told me that she had terminal cancer.

Moonbeams Necklace

  She had never been married in her life and had no children but she had a number of nieces and nephews.  She told me that she had already designated how all of her jewelry (most of which was pieces of mine) was to be passed on to the individual relatives.  But then she said to me that she wasn't passing on her favorite piece (also one of mine) to anyone. She told me she had made arrangements to make sure that she was buried in my moonbeams necklace.  

What can you possibly say about that?

How Long Does Custom Work Take?

18k pink and yellow gold pin with ruby

This is actually an old pin I made but Valentine's Day is coming so I thought it appropriate to put it out.  I wanted to say a couple of things before I get into the main topic of my article today.  First of all I wanted to thank all of you who have emailed (and called) me recently about my postings.  It's great to hear from people who live all over the world who like (and have learned from) what I write.  I'd like to encourage everyone who finds me to please share any or all of my articles with your friends (real or social media) as it helps Google find me better if more people are looking at my articles.  And please if you find one article I've written helpful then read some of my other ones.  I've been writing this a long time and I have a lot of information (and just some fun things) to look at.  There is a directory for some of my articles you can link to on the side of the page (called My Blog Directory) that will sort some (not all as I only update once a year or so) of my articles by topic so if you are looking for some specific information it may be easier to find it. 

Anyway, a number of requests have come in to me recently that makes it very clear to me that many people have no idea what is actually involved in making up a custom piece.  I believe part of the problem lies in our Internet age in which people are used to pushing a couple of buttons on a computer and the next day a book or something else shows up at the door.  The other part I believe lies in what many jewelers claim is custom work.  Many jewelers think that if you come in to their shop, pick out a piece from a catalog they have and tell them what stone you want in it that that is custom work.  That isn't custom work.  The piece is already designed and in existence and picking a stone option just really doesn't mean it's custom. 

Custom work means either that you are developing an entirely new design from scratch or that you are working with a customer on a new design, either based on what you already make but different from everything else you have out.  So if a customer comes into my shop and says I love that ring design but I want a ruby in it instead that isn't custom work.  If, however they come into the store and say I want you to either 1) design a ring with little dinosaurs playfully leaping around the band or 2) I like this look you do but I want you to use my stones and change these particular elements of the style, these things qualify as custom work. 

So how long should custom work take?  Well let's take a look at the idea of little dinosaurs running around the ring.  After we've determined which dinosaurs you want, how wide you want the band, whether there should be borders or not, the type of metal to be used (two colors might be nice on this idea), and your ring size and whether or not this will actually work on your finger, I then have to go and actually make the band.  There are a couple of approaches.  If it's all one color and I think it might work better I might hook up with my Cad/Cam person and work out details with her on doing it up on the computer.  I'm not a big fan of Cad/Cam for this type of work because I think it takes away the handmade look but if I am going to use this process here's what happens:

 My Cad/Cam person and I have to meet and discuss the project.  She has to put my order in line with her other jobs.  She is NOT going to stop everything else she is doing and put my order first even if I am incredibly charming.  Two weeks minimum before we get something to look at on the computer and then I have to decide if it's what I want. If not she has to go back and rework it.  That could take a few more days.  Then I have to show the computer rendering to the customer who also has to approve it.  If you don't like what I've done then we have to go back in and depending on how much rework we need it could take anywhere from a week to two weeks.  After final approval it has to be sent to the caster to be cast.  That takes a week and a half to two weeks.  When I get it back I have to do all the final finish work on it which can run anywhere from a day or two to a week (in part because I'm usually working on multiple jobs at once).  The best case scenario on this is 5 weeks.  The worst case is 8 weeks or more.

Now let's say you've decided you want the band in yellow gold and the dinosaurs in white and pink gold.  This means I will have to hand build the entire thing.  I have to first order the metals which can take up to a week to get in the case of my white gold. In this example I also have to either draw up the dinosaurs myself or find some pictures of some that you like that we can work off of.  If I'm drawing them that's a minimum of a week.  Then I have to get the drawings approved (which means you have to come in and look at them on your schedule--if you get in right away that's great, if it takes you a week that slows it all down).   Once that's happened I have to actually cut out the dinosaurs.  Something as complex as this can take another week or two.  Then you need to see them in real life because they never look exactly like the drawings (unlike in the Cad/Cam process where they look just like the computer rendering).  Then I actually have to construct the entire band which can take another week, or if something goes wrong (and trust me, stuff often goes wrong) two to three weeks.  Then you get to come in and look at the piece and if you like it hooray but if you decide you want some more changes I could either be right back at the beginning or at least needing some more time to make the changes.  Again best case scenario is 4 weeks.  The worst case is 12 weeks.

Now mind you if you're just having me alter some design I already make or if you're picking out an existing design with different stones I can often get the turnaround time down to 2 weeks (again depending on the piece) to 4 weeks.  But remember these things: 1) I have to actually make the piece.  Anything hand built does not just pop out of a computer.  2) I am always dependent on my suppliers.  If they have a problem I have a problem.  3) I'm not a machine.  4) Your order isn't the only order in my shop (and a good thing too because if it was I'd be out of business!).  

Other custom jewelers work in different ways.  Many now do their own Cad/Cam which can speed up the process a bit. But if they are making up a quality piece of jewelry it still isn't going to be done in a week or two.  So planning is important when you're thinking about making that purchase.  If you're on a deadline then you need to plan appropriately.  Leave more time than is necessary because no road is completely bump free. 

Please let me know how you like my articles.  You can leave a comment below or email me.  Thanks so much for reading!