One gate, whoever made it

Every casting house grades its own work, and they grade differently. The jeweler is the one who finds out how differently, usually at the counter, with the client looking at the piece. That is the problem one gate at the end of the chain exists to solve.

A supplier list has as many standards as it has names. An order has to have one.

What the gate checks

Every finished piece is inspected against the approved spec before it ships, and the inspection is the same whichever house cast it. Six points: dimensions and weight against the model, casting integrity under 10x, the security of every stone, the finish, the metal and the hallmark, and a final photographic sign-off that goes to the jeweler.

The stones are counted and photographed at the same time, on the way in and on the way out. On a job that arrives with the jeweler’s own melee that count is the whole conversation later, so it is written down before anybody has a reason to argue about it.

The weight matters more than it looks. A ring that weighs what the model said it would is a ring that was cast from that model, in that alloy, with no porosity hiding under the polish; a ring two tenths of a gram light is a question, and the question gets asked before the piece leaves.

Shipped or remade

There are two ways through the gate and no third. A piece that clears it ships, with its photographs. A piece that does not goes back to the bench and is remade at our cost — not re-quoted, not discounted, not sent on with a note.

That is the structural difference between a desk and a directory. In a directory, a bad casting is the jeweler’s problem to take up with the house. Here the house is one we contract directly, the spec it works to is the one the jeweler approved, and the piece it hands back is ours to accept or refuse before it becomes anybody else’s.

Why it protects you

A jeweler sending work out has always been able to inspect it on return. What they could not do was inspect it before it was paid for, by somebody with a reason to refuse it. The gate puts that person between the house and the invoice.

It is also the thing worth pressing anybody on. A remake promise only means something when the party making it chose the maker and holds the piece; a partner who selects the house and then bills you when the house underperforms has arranged matters so that the promise costs them nothing to break.