Many years ago a young man walked into my shop. He had been there before to change the battery to a watch his father had given him on his high school graduation and had build trust and confidence in me enough to request that I help him pick out a special gift for a girl he had been dating. We picked out a pair of Italian made 14kt earrings that day.
Later that year during Christmas time he came in and purchased a diamond and emerald ring, it was their first Christmas together and he wanted to make it a special event. After Christmas I met the young lady he had bestowed his gifts to when she came into my store to have the ring sized. She also bought with her a small broach her grandmother had given her. Her grandmother had received the broach on her fifteenth birthday in the mid 40's.
Thanks to gold's durability it only took a bit of polishing and straightening of the attaching pin to make the piece look as new as the day her grandmother received fifty years ago.
After a year of purchasing another set of earrings for Valentines, these were made of diamond, a matching necklace and bracelet set for her birthday and other small and inexpensive accessories which I thought had no apparent reason, the young man walked into my store and announced he was going to ask the girl to marry him. He had graduated from college and had a promising job with an export company. We picked out a beautiful 3/4 carat diamond which I offered to buy back the day he would want to upgrade it to a one carat or more. I was invited to the engagement, an affair attended by family members and close friends. My pride swelled within me as everyone admired the ring he had picked out. I felt I had played an important part of the event. On their wedding day I loaned them a diamond necklace as part of the "something borrowed" tradition.
Some five years later his wife walked into my store to purchase a high grade watch to commemorate his becoming vice-president of the company. She was now wearing a one and a half carat diamond on her finger and the 3/4 carat he had originally purchase for her on a simple necklace. When they had purchased the one and a half carat they could not bear to trade in the diamond which marked their engagement and the beginning of facing the challenges of life together.
I asked her how she developed her passion for jewelry and she explained to me that every single piece of jewelry she had represented her some of the most wonderful moments in her life as well as in the life of those who had handled them down to her like her grandmother.
"Someday I'll be able to hand down some of my jewelry to my children on their special occasions. I am now pregnant with my second." she explained.
Six months later I designed for him a ring to give her with a diamond for the child born in April and a sapphire for the child born in September.
Jewelry, there is no better commemorative gift!
Luis A. Bouzon
Louis Alexander Jewellers