A jeweler's loupe is a small magnifying glass, fitting into the eye socket or hand-held, usually ten-power, used to examine gemstones and jewelry. My late father Norman gave me the older one you see here when I came back to the family business thirty-four years ago. It is a folding model, to fit into the pocket, made of steel, and has "MADE IN HOLLAND" stamped on the other side. My dad said it had belonged to his father, who founded the company in Oklahoma City in the early 1900's. When he gave it to me, it was inside a little leather pouch with a snap. I believe he had this made after he got it from his father, because he loved to add his own touch to things. I used to think of it as my grandfather's gun in my father's holster.

For years, I carried it around with me all the time. It became a talisman. When I started my own business, it linked me to my past. One day, I put it away. Over the years, I took it out to use again for briefer and briefer periods, and finally put it in my safe for good. Once in a while, while looking for something else, I find it and take it out and look at it, thinking of my father when I do.

I still use the other gifts he gave me — of perseverance and imagination — in my own way, every day, seeing with my own eyes and knowing that they belong to me more fully than any physical possession ever can. Now, any loupe I pick up might have been my father's, because it is in how it is used. Every gemstone I examine echoes with the meaning that its owner gives it. And what was old in each generation's gift to the next becomes new again.

On this website, I work with the value of jewelry: creating it in new items of high quality at conservative prices, finding it in estate pieces for inheritance or sale, and conserving it with expert appraising. The historic role of gems and jewelry to preserve wealth, both financial and in terms of family and community memory, has been part of the human story for thousands of years. To listen for its meaning to each person who finds his or her way to me — the fine mist of hopes and dreams and memories surrounding it — is to come to know you and how to serve you. It is a privilege, because jewelry is an intimate thing, and joyful to share because of the all the beauty. I say thanks.