When it comes to jewelry, we want what we want. There are few other possessions that encourage us to be so exacting. We want beauty, symbolism, and timelessness. We want durability and wearability. We want quality and purity. We want originality. We want something that says “me” or “him/her.” We want it to express the biggest emotions we are capable of. And we want it in a very small box.
Making customers happy in this complex, sensitive, intimate business is a pretty tall order. It will take you a while to read through the testimonials on Finlayson’s Goldsmiths website. They go on and on. Over and over, customers seem to realize how difficult they’ve been, and cannot say enough about how delighted they are with the process and the result.
A visit to the Finlayson home studio on the outskirts of Gibsons helps us understand why customers come away so happy.
Glance around the workshop and you might notice that the tools of the trade have hardly changed at all in hundreds of years. Here Ian Finlayson creates and Darcy Gertz repairs and sizes. They’ve been working together for years. Ian is a master goldsmith with forty years of experience. His early apprenticeship with the renowned Swiss jeweller Toni Cavelti has given him a solid background in the dying art of making jewelry using traditional European techniques. Personable and with a shy Sam Elliot smile, Ian has seen lots of trends in this business. These days, with gold prices so high, many customers come in with inherited and older jewelry or even coins they want restyled, or just to trade in for cash. “Beware of the travelling gold buyers!” cautions Ian. Best to put your trust in an established business.
Across the foyer is a bright and spacious office and display room where customers chat with Ian’s daughter, Lesley, about their needs. Leslie is the designer, but creative muscle is only a part of the process. It’s her job to ask the right questions and find out what people really want. She laughingly describes it as “interrogation.” It calls for a lot of educating, sensitivity, and problem-solving. The possibilities for just the simple band of a ring can be absolutely daunting: flat, rounded, brushed, thin, wide. I am shown several particularly lovely “scrollwork” bands that are intricate and organic and painstakingly handcrafted. People who do heavier work with their hands can get custom “safety releases” on their ring bands. Older people with swollen knuckles are easily accommodated.
Lesley recalls some unusual orders too. “We’ve made custom 18K fly-fishing hooks, a set of silver and gold cribbage pegs . . . A few times we’ve had fishermen bring in rustic pearls they’ve found in local shellfish.”
People buy custom jewelry for every reason under the sun: engagements and graduations, babies and accomplishments. More somber reasons too. Sometimes a divorced or widowed woman will design and buy a ring for herself. And while anything goes, some of the stereotypes generally hold true. So much so that the Finlaysons had a gift certificate made up to reward men for not waiting until the last minute to order: “Well done, Sir! You thought ahead! You anticipated an important gift-giving occasion well in advance, giving your jeweller time to meet your needs, ” etc. The certificate entitles the bearer to ten percent off his next purchase.
A few customers came by while I was there, and each was greeted by name, like family. Each person had a story, and some unique and beloved Finlayson jewelry they were proud to show to me.
For more information about Finlayson Goldsmiths, visit their website at finlaysons.ca.
Words | Nancy Pincombe
