Custom Jewelry Service

A commission begins with less than most people think they need - a screenshot, a ring someone left you, a colour you cannot quite name. What follows is six deliberate steps, run from our workshop in Tsim Sha Tsui by GIA-qualified gemologists with over fifty years of collective experience between them.

This page sets out exactly how it works, what it costs you and when, and the points in the process that cannot be undone. Read it before you commit to anything.

Step 1 — The consultation

One gemologist, start to finish. You are assigned a single person by name, and they stay with you until the piece is on your hand. Not a queue, not a call centre - the same gemologist who negotiates your stone is the one who answers at ten at night. Reach them on WhatsApp, by phone, or across the bench in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Everyone here is GIA-qualified - Diamond Graduate or Applied Jewelry Professional, without exception. It matters more than it sounds: the genuinely useful advice in this trade is almost always the advice that talks you out of something. A stone that will look grey in your office light. A setting that will catch on everything you own. A carat weight you are paying for and will never see.

Bring whatever you have. An image, a sketch, a family piece to rework, or nothing beyond a budget. We work exclusively in 18k gold and platinum. If what you are picturing cannot be built well for the money you have, we will say so in the first conversation rather than the fourth.

Tell us the real number early. Every choice downstream - carat against cut, natural against lab-grown, platinum against 18k - is a trade we can make deliberately in your favour once we know where the ceiling sits. A budget is a design constraint, not an embarrassment.

Step 2 — Choosing the stone

This is where money is genuinely won or lost. We buy from a global network, but you never see the whole of it. You see the handful of stones that survive our standards and your brief, with the reasoning for each one written out.

A shortlist, not a catalogue. Your gemologist hand-picks four or five stones against your criteria and budget, and tells you plainly what each one trades away. Nobody chooses well from a spreadsheet of two thousand rows. People choose well from five stones and an honest opinion about each.

Eye-clean, without exception. We do not sell SI-grade or cloudy diamonds. Not at a discount, not as a way to hit a carat number, not because a certificate says it grades acceptably. If an inclusion is visible to an unaided eye at normal viewing distance, the stone does not go into a Mangrove piece.

No fluorescence — none, not "faint". Fluorescence is one of the quiet ways a stone turns milky in daylight, and one of the quiet ways a dealer shaves a price. We buy inert stones only. It costs us margin and saves you the phone call two years later asking why your diamond looks hazy outdoors.

Cut is settled before carat. A well-cut 0.90 will out-perform a lazily cut 1.05 in every room you will ever stand in, and cost you less. Where the two pull against each other we argue for cut, and let you overrule us.

The last gate: we look at it ourselves. A grading report describes a stone; it does not show you one. So nothing reaches your shortlist on paper alone. Every shortlisted stone is examined unmounted, in daylight, before it is offered to you. Stones that grade beautifully and simply do not perform get sent back, and you never hear about them.

Coloured stones, held to the same line. For rubies and sapphires we work to GRS reporting. Semi-precious stones come with full characteristic documentation. The standard does not soften because the material changes.

Step 3 — Deposit, then design

Design work begins once your deposit is placed. We are direct about this because the sequence matters and other studios are vague about it: sketching, CAD and rendering are chargeable design work, not free sales collateral.

What the deposit covers. Your stone is reserved and taken off the market, and your commission enters the design queue. Your ideas go to our designers as hand sketches, then into CAD, then out as a photorealistic render on a hand at true scale - so you see the piece from every angle, at the size it will actually be.

Revisions are quoted, not unlimited. We do not offer open-ended free revisions, and we would rather say so on this page than surprise you in an email. Changes beyond the agreed scope are priced and approved by you before any work is done, so you always know the cost in advance.

Details we will raise before you do. Whether the band sits flush against an existing wedding ring. Whether the setting height will catch on a coat pocket. Whether the prong count suits how you use your hands. These decide whether a piece is worn daily or kept in a drawer, and they are far cheaper to fix in CAD than in gold.

Step 4 — Approval and balance

One clearly marked moment, after you have seen the piece rendered. It is the point of no return, and we would rather state it plainly here than in small print later.

Approving the render releases the piece to the bench. The balance falls due, your stone is committed, wax is cut and bench time is booked. From that moment the order cannot be cancelled: a bespoke piece is scaled, sized and set to one person's specification, and there is no second buyer for it.

What we owe you in return. Photographed progress at each stage - casting, setting, finishing - sent to you without being asked for. You should never have to chase us to find out where your piece is.

Sizing, handled honestly. If your ring size changes between approval and delivery, tell your gemologist immediately. Before casting it usually costs nothing. After setting it may not be possible at all on certain designs, and we will tell you which yours is.

Step 5 — Making, and proving it

Three to four weeks at the bench, then the part most workshops skip: demonstrating to you, with instruments and photographs, that what was made is what you approved.

Cast, polished, set — in that order. After casting, every piece is sanded, polished and cleaned before a single stone goes near it. Setting last is slower, and it is the reason stones sit level and prongs sit tight.

Finished where you cannot see, too. Multi-stage polishing through the gallery, under the head, inside the shank - the surfaces nobody photographs. Rhodium finishing where the design calls for it. You will feel the difference before you notice it.

CAD-to-reality check. Your finished piece is photographed directly beside the CAD you signed off, at matched scale. It is the simplest honest proof there is: the blueprint and the object, in one frame, for you to compare yourself.

Measured, not eyeballed. Digital calipers confirm band and gallery thickness against the specification; a steel mandrel confirms the size. Tolerances here are tenths of a millimetre, and tenths of a millimetre are the difference between a ring you wear and a ring you adjust.

A QC pack before the box closes. A full set of photographs and video reaches you before the piece is packed, with metal and gemstone testing results on request. If something is not right it goes back to the bench then, not after it has crossed a border.

Timing. Three to four weeks is normal. Chinese public holidays are the one thing that reliably extends it, and we will flag that at the outset if your dates fall near them. Expedited production is available on request for US$200.

Step 6 — Delivery, or collection in person

Shipping is free on every order, and the route is chosen by what your piece is worth rather than by what costs us least. You are told which carrier before it leaves the building.

Above US$10,000 — guarded, door to door. Brinks or Malca Amit, the same two names the auction houses use when a lot leaves the room. Signed for at every handover, and never sitting in a general sorting facility.

Below US$10,000 — FedEx, insured to declared value. Fully tracked, with insurance at a value you specify rather than one we assume. It is the sensible balance of security and cost at that level, and we will say so plainly rather than upselling you.

Or collect it from us in Tsim Sha Tsui. If you are in Hong Kong, come and take it off the bench. We would rather hand it to you and watch you put it on - and it lets us size, clean and adjust on the spot.

What we will not do

Most of what is wrong with this industry is not fraud. It is margin hidden inside vagueness: a price with no working shown, a grade nobody explains, a stone chosen for the invoice rather than the wearer. These are the lines we hold.

Pricing you can follow. Lab-grown stones are routinely retailed at three times cost in this market, and the customer is given no way to know it. We quote the stone and the work as separate, legible numbers. You will always be able to see what you are paying for the diamond and what you are paying us to build around it.

Advice that can cost us the sale. If a smaller, better-cut stone is the right answer, we will tell you and take the smaller sale. If the piece you are describing would be better made by someone else, we will say that too. A gemologist who has never talked a client down is not giving advice, they are taking an order.

The same standard on the parts you cannot see. Inside the shank, under the gallery, behind the head. Nobody photographs those surfaces and nobody checks them at the counter, which is precisely why they are where corners get cut.

A relationship after the sale. Cleaning, checking, re-tipping, resizing where the design allows - bring the piece back. We would far rather see you every few years for twenty minutes at the bench than sell you one ring and never hear from you again.

Certification

We do not grade our own diamonds. Nobody credible does. Every significant stone is reported on by an independent laboratory, and the report travels with the piece.

GIA for diamonds of one carat and above and many of our coloured stones - the global reference standard for cut, colour, clarity and carat, assessed by people with no interest in the sale. GRS for rubies and sapphires, where origin and treatment disclosure decide most of the value. IGI and AGS also appear in our work, particularly on lab-grown stones where IGI reporting is the trade norm. Semi-precious gemstones come with full characteristic documentation.

Begin

Tell us what you are picturing. Bring an image, a budget, or just a rough idea - the first conversation is for working out whether we are the right people to build it, and it costs you nothing.

Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong. By appointment.