Some days, I feel old. My knees hurt, my back hurts, and arthritis is growing in my finger joints. But ah! It’s life. Every day I get up, clean up, and try to look my very best before I leave for work, and I get polished up.
I share this because in my daily life as a jeweler/designer I enjoy much of my time listening to customers share stories of their jewelry. Every piece has it's own story to tell and people love to share them with us at our store. We love to hear them! They tell us whose it was, where it came from, even where they were when he proposed to her. Many of these pieces need some TLC after years of wear.
We repair a lot of jewelry! We take a piece that has been worn for decades and make it look the very best it can before it leaves the store. A ring may need a stone replaced, or sized or completely remade, and it gets polished up.
Diamonds are old. They were formed deep in the earth 1-3 billion years ago. Over time, earthquakes and violent upheavals of the ground have created avenues for them to rise to the surface where they are found today.
Diamonds were first used in jewelry and adornment some 3000-4000 years ago. They were crudely cut (if they were even cut at all), with a flat bottom and had few facets or planes on the top. They didn’t have the sparkle and fire that we see now.
Diamond cutting evolved very slowly over the centuries until in the 1400's, a cutter in Antwerp, Belgium invented a tool that gave the cutters the ability to make symmetrical facets. They still didn’t have the brilliance that 20th century technology brought. Through the magic of lasers, x-ray technology, math and physics, diamonds get polished up! And they are still really, really old. What stories they must have to tell!
Antwerp is old. Excavations have found artifacts as far back as the 2nd-3rd centuries. The Vikings burned the city to the ground in the 900’s. In the 15th -16th centuries it was the leading port of the European continent. It has been invaded by the likes of the Romans, Spanish, French, the Netherlands and more. Today it is the 4th largest European port. It is getting very polished up!
Tell us your story. Do you have something that needs to get polished up? What is in your jewelry box, drawer, or cabinet that needs some TLC? Did you lose a diamond or is the chain broken from the first gift he gave you? Bring them in, tell us your story!
The diamond is still old, but the story is new.
-Holly
