Not emerald earrings

This is a lovely story! 

My client who wishes to remain anonymous bought some emeralds in a bar in Columbia many years ago and gave them to his wife as a gift.  She had them in a drawer and so for her 50th birthday he asked me to make them into earrings for her.  When I saw the stones I immediately realised they weren’t emeralds, because they don’t have the correct clerking or any of the characteristics of Emeralds such as ‘jardin’ but the fact that they aren’t precious doesn’t matter at all - the gift was still hugely personal and meaningful so we went ahead with making the earrings. 

We chose one of my more unusual alloys of peach gold to complement the colour of the stones and I used a technique called reticulation to develop the texture on the metal. 

The earrings are beautiful and real showstoppers - I don’t think it matters at all that the stones aren’t emeralds, except to my client’s pocket and perhaps his long passed pride!