What Makes Jewellery Precious?

Precious isn't always about price. Sometimes, it's about the story.

What makes a piece of jewellery precious?

Is it the material it's made from? The price paid for it? The name on the box?

Or is it something else entirely?

I've been thinking about this recently because the word precious is used so often when we talk about jewellery. Precious metals. Precious stones. Precious gems.

But some of the most precious things we own have very little to do with monetary value.

It might be a simple necklace that belonged to your mother. A bracelet bought on a holiday you still talk about years later. Something a child chose for you with great seriousness and very little budget.

On paper, these things may not be particularly valuable.

Try telling that to the person who owns them.

There is a difference between value and worth.

Value can be measured.

Worth is personal.

I think that's something we can sometimes lose sight of. We're surrounded by messages telling us what we should want, what is desirable and what is worth spending money on. Rarity, price, provenance, the right name.

Of course, those things can matter. But they aren't the whole story.

Jewellery has existed for thousands of years, long before brands and price tags told us what was important.

People have always adorned themselves.

With shells. Stones. Beads. Bone. Metal. Glass. Things found, traded, treasured and passed from one person to another.

Perhaps the materials have changed, but the instinct hasn't.

We choose things to wear because something about them speaks to us.

That's certainly how I feel about the materials I work with. I can have a beautiful pearl in front of me and, next to it, an old bead I've found and decided to give another life to. One may technically be worth more than the other.

That doesn't necessarily make it more interesting.

Sometimes it's the imperfect bead, the unusual stone or the piece with a little history that catches my eye.

I like the idea that something doesn't have to fit somebody else's definition of precious before it deserves to become part of something beautiful.

Sometimes it's the character of a bead or stone that makes me want to use it in the first place.

And perhaps that's why I don't think jewellery has to be expensive to be precious.

It simply has to mean something to the person wearing it.

We probably all own something like that.

Something that wouldn't attract much attention in an auction room but that we'd immediately notice was missing.

And maybe that's the better measure of what something is worth.

Not what someone else would pay for it.

But whether we'd ever want to part with it.