How to read a hallmark, and what it does not tell you
A stamp confirms purity. It says nothing about whether the piece was made well. Here is the difference.
Kathmandu · Since 1990
Jewellery is notjust worn.It is remembered.
Thirty-five years at one bench on New Road. Everything here is drawn at actual size, worn in wax before a gram of gold is committed, and tagged with every weight it carries.
What we are
We make about four hundred pieces a year. Every one of them is drawn at actual size, worn in wax before any gold is committed, and finished on the side nobody sees as carefully as on the side everybody does.
Everything on the tag
Gross, net and fine weight, purity and making charge — written separately on every piece, without being asked.
Priced from the day’s rate
Metal is charged at the published Nepal rate on the day you buy. The making charge is quoted apart from it.
Nothing is glued
Every stone is seated in metal and checked twice, by two people. The second check is the one that catches things.
The daily piece
The hardest jewellery to make well is the jewellery nobody remarks on.
A chain that sits flat. A ring that clears a keyboard. An earring light enough to forget by lunch. These take longer than the showpieces and nobody ever notices — which is the point.
Daily Wear
The collection
Nothing is published to the site at this moment.
Stock moves quickly and every piece here is a single object. Come and see what is on the counter, or tell us what you are looking for and we will make it.
In three dimensions
Turn it over. Look at the back.
Photographs decide what you get to see. This does not. Change the alloy and the metal behaves differently — 24K sits deeper and softer than 22K, which holds a tighter polish. Change the stone and it refracts at its own index. The price follows.
Your piece
- Solitaire Ring
- 22K Gold
- Diamond, 0.3 ct
- US 8
Choose a configuration
Keep this configuration, or send it to someone.
Nothing is charged here. A configuration in your bag is the start of a conversation, not an order.
Drag to rotate
A live rendering of the configuration. Proportions follow the workshop’s own schedule for this form; the finished piece is made by hand and will carry the marks of it.
Craftsmanship
Seven stages, and none of them can be hurried.
- 01
Concept
A conversation, then drawings at actual size. Nothing is drawn on a screen at this stage — a necklace always reads smaller on a screen than it does at the collarbone, and correcting for that later costs gold.
- 04
Handcrafting
Casting where casting is right, and raising from sheet where it is not. Repoussé work cannot be cast — it is pushed up from the back and chased from the front, which is why there are never many antique pieces at once.
- 07
Inspection & hallmark
Assay, hallmark, and a final fitting done in daylight rather than under the counter lamp. Then the tag: gross, net, fine, making charge, and the date. That tag is the piece's birth certificate.
Bespoke
Most commissions begin with something that already exists.
An inherited necklace. A stone out of an old ring. A photograph of a grandmother. Bring it in, and half the design gets decided in the first half hour.
- 01
Discover
Tell us the idea, or bring the piece it has to sit beside.
Most commissions begin with something that already exists — an inherited necklace, a stone out of an old ring, a photograph of a grandmother. Bring it. Half the design decisions get made in that first half hour.
- 02
Design
Drawn at actual size, then worn in wax.
You will see the piece on paper at full scale, and then wear it in wax before any gold is committed. Most designs change at the wax stage, and the change is nearly always to reduce weight at the neck.
- 03
Craft
Four to ten weeks at the bench.
Casting or raising, filing, joining, setting, polishing. You are welcome at the workshop while it is being made — it is a fifteen-minute walk from the shop and we would rather you saw it.
- 04
Reveal
Fitted in daylight, tagged, and handed over.
Final fitting happens by the shopfront window rather than under the counter lamp, because that is closer to how you will actually see it. The tag carries every weight and the date it was finished.
The house
Thirty-five years on the same street.
Three generations of some families now wear pieces made here. The workshop is larger, the safe is better, and the display case has never been moved.
- 1990
- One bench, one safe, and a display case that would not go round the stairwell.
- 1998
- Enough wedding sets commissioned that the drawings needed their own book.
- 2009
- Temple forms raised from sheet rather than cast — slower, and the only honest way.
- 2019
- Every weight and the making charge written separately on every tag, unasked.
Journal
Things worth knowing before you buy anything from anyone.
Coloured stones behave differently under Kathmandu light
A sapphire chosen under a jeweller's lamp and worn at an evening function are not the same colour. Choose accordingly.
Living with 22K gold
High-purity gold is soft. That is the trade you make for the colour, and it is a trade worth understanding.
Come and see them
Gold photographs badly. It is meant to be picked up.
There is no appointment system and no minimum spend. Walk in, ask for the tag, weigh anything you like on the counter scale.
Where
Keesha Plaza, Ground FloorNew Road, Kathmandu
Nepal
When
Sunday — Friday · 10:00 — 19:00
Saturday · Closed