Commission
From sketch
to hallmark
A commission is not a catalogue piece with your initials on it. It is designed for one person, made at our bench, and hallmarked in London before it reaches them — and it usually starts with a conversation rather than a drawing.
Start here
A brief, not an order
Most people start with less than they think they need — a stone they saw, a ring that belonged to someone, a shape they keep returning to. That is enough.
We will come back with questions before we come back with a drawing. The questions are the design.
The process
What actually happens
Six to ten weeks is typical, and the two ends of that range are usually decided by how long the right stone takes to find.
Nothing is charged until drawings and a figure are agreed. If you decide against it at that point, you have lost an afternoon and we have lost nothing worth counting.
- 01
The conversation
In the showroom or on the telephone. What it is for, who wears it, what they already own and what they would never wear. Half an hour, and it decides more than any drawing.
- 02
Drawings and a figure
Hand drawings, and a written quotation broken into metal, stones and bench time so you can see what moves the price. Nothing is charged to this point.
- 03
The stone
Sourced against your brief and shown to you on certificate and in the hand before it is committed. You approve the stone before anyone touches metal.
- 04
Wax or CAD, and your approval
A model to hold, so the proportions are judged at actual size rather than on a screen. Changes here cost a day; changes after casting cost a piece.
- 05
Cast, set and finished
At our bench. The setting is the part that separates a good ring from an expensive one, and it is done here rather than sent out.
- 06
Hallmarked, then yours
To the London Assay Office and back. The Assay Office sets that timetable, not us, and it is the one stage we cannot compress.
Stone sourcing
Finding the stone
We buy stones for commissions rather than selling you what is already in the safe. That means your brief decides the stone instead of our stock deciding your design.
You will be shown the options with their certificates, told what each one costs and why, and you choose. If none of them is right we go back out and look again.
- On certificate
- Anything significant comes with a GIA or IGI report, and we verify the report number with the laboratory rather than taking the paper at face value.
- Seen in the hand
- Two stones with identical certificates do not look identical. We show you the candidates together, under the same light, before you choose.
- Where the money goes
- Cut first. A well-cut stone a little smaller outperforms a badly cut stone a little larger every time, and colour and clarity can be traded down further than most people expect.
- Laboratory-grown
- We will source it and say so on the paperwork, always. It is a legitimate choice and a very different asset — we will explain which you are buying.
- Coloured stones
- Sapphire, ruby and emerald to brief, with treatment disclosed. An untreated stone and a treated one are not the same thing at any price.
Remodelling
Something you already own
A drawer is a poor setting. Remodelling takes a piece that is not worn and makes one that is, usually for a good deal less than starting from nothing because the stones are already yours.
It is also the decision people are most anxious about, so we take it slowly and nothing is cut, melted or unset until you have seen exactly what is proposed.
- What it suits
- Inherited pieces nobody wears. A good stone in a worn or dated setting. Three rings that could honestly be one.
- Your own metal
- Old gold can be refined and credited against the new piece. We weigh it in front of you and show you the figure.
- Before anything
- Photographed and recorded as it was. Some pieces are worth more as they stand, and if yours is one we will tell you rather than take the work.
- Keeping the original
- A stone can be reset while the old mount is kept intact. People are often glad they did.
Past commissions
The archive
Commissions are made for one person, and a good many of the people they were made for would rather not see them on a website. So the archive is shown in the showroom rather than published, with permission asked each time.
Come in and we will go through it properly — including the pieces that took three attempts, which are more instructive than the ones that went right first time.
Shown by appointment, with permission