The Stones
We choose stones one at a time, for the light they hold.
Not by parcel, and not to a specification. Each one is picked in person, for colour first. This is what we look for, and why.
Diamond
Colourless, and unforgiving about it.
We buy small and well cut over large and lazy. A stone that gives light back is worth more to us than one that merely weighs.
Sapphire
Blue that keeps its depth after dark.
Bought unheated where we can find it, and said plainly when we cannot.
Tanzanite
Blue one way, violet the other.
One hill in Tanzania and no second one, which means we can always tell you exactly where it came from.
Emerald
Green with the garden still in it.
We accept the inclusions. An emerald without any is a stone worth asking questions about.
Aquamarine
The bay in early summer.
Cut for clarity rather than depth of colour, so it reads as light rather than stone.
Tourmaline
Every colour there is, and often two at once.
Where the colour changes we keep the change, instead of sawing it out to make two tidier stones.
Pearl
Lit from within rather than polished.
Chosen for lustre and for the depth of the surface. The one gem that needs no cutting at all.
Mother-of-Pearl
The shell's lining, not the pearl.
Kept for its quiet. It carries a piece without ever competing with it.
Nearly every coloured stone on earth has been heated at some point between the ground and the setting. It is ordinary, and it is permanent. We will tell you which of ours were.