The Golden Touch: Shaun Atkinson

Recently I had the privilege of watching a craftsman at work. There are not all that many craftsmen about these days and the particular craft that I refer to is the manufacturing of jewellery.

Shaun Atkinson is the Master of this ancient art, his father and grandfather were both Jewellers in Beverley and he has worked in the trade all his life. To see him transfer some pieces of scrap metal into beautiful individual pieces of art is something like seeing an Alchemist transfer base metal into gold.

In this case the original metal was certainly not base but some pieces of gold trinkets that had belonged to the great aunt of a young lady soon to be married.

What Shaun did was melt this small pile of baubles and produce from it a seamless tube of gold that he then fashioned into two beautiful, individual, wedding rings. The very fact that the rings were made from jewellery that had been in the family over the years seemed to give them and the union that they represent a more romantic and permanent aura.

When you compare this process, with the blocks of carbon the blowtorch and the skilful work and detail that it incurs to the normal manufacture of a wedding ring where a stream of metal is mechanically chopped into pieces and then formed into a ring like a wire being formed into a curtain-ring, about as romantic as cutting your toe nails, it is no wonder that more and more people are seeking out the services of craftsmen, like Shaun to produce long lasting jewellery and pieces with very romantic connection.

by Pat Nolan