Future in Jewellery

What will be coming is a day when on most jewellery store desks there sits a computer, screen and 3-D prototyping machine. The store owner slips a CD into the computer and shows the customer various rendered models of rings or jewellery. The stone’s colors, shapes and sizes can easily by altered from the keyboard or with a mouse. Heads can be exchanged on rings with a quick mouse click on a menu of photographic choices from the suppliers line. Various models can also be quickly chosen from images on a menu. A color printout of the photographically rendered jewellery piece can be handed to the customer. If the store has not yet bought the code for that particular model or combination a quick call is made to the issuing company’s phone number, the model number is typed in on the phone and an access code given. The jeweller then types that in and the 3-D prototyping system quickly turns out a finished wax model ready for burnout, casting and finishing in the customer’s size. There will be jewellery designers who work a keyboard and mouse. And that even before they come out with machines that turn out the finished gold jewellery ready for setting and skip the casting step. There will however continue to be a place for most of the professions mentioned in this article.