An hour at the table with a pencil, a wax you can hold, then the metal, from £650 in nine-carat
Bespoke commissions
A piece made for one person, from a conversation. An hour at the table with Elin and a sketchbook, a scaled drawing within a week, a wax model you can try on, then the ring in metal before the stone is set. Nine-carat from £650, eighteen-carat from £950, platinum from £1,400, with your own stones or ours.
Bespoke does not mean expensive and it does not mean elaborate. It means made for one person, by someone who sat with them. About a quarter of what we make is a plain band in a particular width and profile that nobody sells; the rest is engagement rings, remodelled heirlooms, a pendant from a grandmother's stones, a signet with a hand-cut crest. All of it starts the same way: an hour, a pencil, and your hands on the table so we can see them.
The design hour is £60 and is the only thing you pay for until you have seen a drawing. In it we talk about who the piece is for, how they live and work (a nurse's ring is not a pianist's), the stones you have or want, the metal and the budget. Elin sketches as you talk. Within a week you have a scaled drawing by email with the price in writing; if you want changes, there are usually two more drawings before the wax.
The wax is the moment the piece becomes real: a model carved or printed at the exact size, which you try on at the table. Half of our clients change something at the wax, usually the width or the height of the setting, and that is what it is for. The deposit is 25% at the wax. Then the ring is cast and finished upstairs, hallmarked at Birmingham, and you see it in metal before any stone is set; the stone goes in while you watch if you want it to.
Your own stones are welcome and so is your own gold, with two honest caveats: old gold is refined and the value set against the price rather than melted straight into the new ring, because old solder makes a porous casting; and a stone we have not sold you is set at your risk, though in thirty-eight years we have broken two, and replaced both. A commission takes six to eight weeks from the design hour; a plain band four.
What is included
- The design hour, £60, credited
- A scaled drawing within a week, with the price
- A wax model to try on at the table
- Cast and finished upstairs, hallmarked at Birmingham
- The stone set while you watch, if you want
- Your own stones and gold welcome
What it costs
From £650 in nine-carat gold, £950 in eighteen-carat and £1,400 in platinum, including the drawing, the wax and the hallmark; stones on top at cost plus setting. The design hour is £60, credited against the commission, and refunded if we say the idea will not work. The repairs page has the full price list with the days each job takes; the bespoke page walks through a commission from the first hour to the hallmark.
Questions about bespoke
How long does a commission take?
Six to eight weeks from the design hour to collection for a stone-set piece; four weeks for a plain band. The hallmark adds a week we cannot shorten. For a date, come ten weeks before it and we will promise a day.
Can you remodel my mother's rings into one piece?
It is about a third of what we do. We draw with her rings on the table, use her stones, refine her gold and set its value against the price, and make something you will wear rather than keep in a drawer.
Come in with the piece, or book an hour at the table.
Repairs, batteries and the cabinet need no appointment: the counter is open Monday to Saturday, 9:30 to 5:30, in the Royal Arcade. For a bespoke commission, a ring fitting or a valuation, book an hour and we reply within the working day with a time. The price list is on the wall and on here.