Archeologists have identified Incan methods, Egyptian methods, Native American methods, ad infinitum – dating to several thousand years.  Even going back to the very early times in America, jewelry manufacturing  was basically done by the talented village blacksmith.  This was the one craftsman used to working with heated metals, much as he created horseshoes.

Historically the oldest societies worked basically with their hands and rough hewn tools.  Until the adaptation of the modern computer in the 1970′s, surprisingly little had been done to “modernize” jewelry manufacturing.  All manufacturing began to change in a rather spectacular fashion with the new methods of creating fine and fashion jewelry made available by using a computer.

Much of the exquisite work of today is still initially designed by talented individual designers with paper and pencil.  The remainder of the most beautiful creations are created entirely in the computer.  Utilizing full 3-dimensional imagery has elevated so much of what we see today. Ring designers, for example, keep in mind what will be required for the manufacturer to exactly recreate their design.  The most modern manufacturers’ sample division can furnish the designer a virtually rendered (VR) image which is generated using some form of Computer Aided Design (CAD) software.  This VR shows a computer generated image of what the fashion jewelry item will look like prior to making a sample and has become invaluable to modern day creations for manufacturing.

Over the next 2 to 3 Fridays, I will go into detail about the fashion jewelry manufacturing process that fuels our retail and wholesale jewelry business.