When a ring leaves the bench at John T. Haynes Inc., it carries three marks: the maker's hallmark, the metal quality stamp, and a unique identifier number. Those marks are the piece's legal identity. They need to be readable in 50 years, on a surface that gets rubbed against skin every day.
That is why Jeff Mathews stamps them by hand.
Table of ContentsJohn T. Haynes Inc. has more than 50 years of experience in fine jewelry, including important estate pieces and rare gemstones. Jeff Mathews has spent 46 years at the bench. He is a Jewelers of America Certified Master Bench Jeweler, currently one of only 128, and holds a 1992 patent on stone-setting tools.
When someone with that resume orders marking tools, the spec is not negotiable.
Durable manufactures custom hand stamps for Haynes on unique blanks, with character sizes of 0.062 and 0.093 inches. The set includes the Haynes hallmark logo, metal quality marks such as 18K and PLAT, and a full set of 0 through 9 numerals for serial numbers. Each piece gets a unique identifier number stamped into the shank for legal traceability.
Each stamp starts with unique artwork, in this case, a hallmark logo that has to reproduce cleanly at a character height that most people need a loupe to read. The blanks are machined to fit the way Jeff works at the bench, and the character faces are cut deep and sharp, so a single strike produces a full, even impression. The stamps mark platinum and gold and would work on any soft jewelry metal. Each stamp is struck with a hammer against the finished piece, driving the character deep into the metal in one hit.
Tool life matters as much as the first impression. A jewelry stamp gets struck thousands of times over its working life, and a face that rounds over or chips turns every mark after it into a liability. Durable hardens and finishes the stamps to hold their edge, strike after strike.
Finding that combination is not a given. Haynes had a supplier for these stamps. Then they stopped making them.
"Our previous supplier no longer made the stamps, and I was concerned," Mathews says. "Durable has been great to work with, and they supply a tremendous quality stamp."
There are plenty of jewelers who laser engrave their marks. Mathews does not, and the reason is depth. A laser mark sits near the surface. On a ring that will be rubbing against skin, other rings, and everything else that a hand will come into contact with for decades, a shallow mark can wear away. A hand-stamped mark is displaced metal, cut deep enough that normal wear never reaches the bottom of the stamped character.
For a hallmark and a serial number that exist for legal reasons, permanence is the whole point.
"Very deep, very precise, and they make beautiful permanent marks," Mathews says of the Durable stamps.
A 0.062-inch character hammer-struck into platinum is about as demanding as marking gets. The character has to be crisp at a size that can only be revealed when using a loupe, and the stamp must survive repeated strikes without deforming. Durable builds these as custom tools for one customer's exact hallmark, one character set at a time.
Durable definitely helps Jeff Mathews make his mark!