Past and Present Quartz Cocktail Ring

The Marks Behind the Quartz

This cocktail ring features quartz polished to retain the marks of the traditional Japanese cobbing process, set in a textured band made in 18k gold. The marks on the underside remain visible through the quartz, even when the ring is viewed from above.

Before gemstone work became mechanized in Kofu, specialist artisans studied each piece of rough quartz and split it by hand to obtain the most efficient cut. Their work was known as cobbing—an early stage of the process whose traces would ordinarily disappear as the stone was finished.

Here, a contemporary master lapidarist has polished the quartz while deliberately keeping those working surfaces intact. The artisans of the past and present never shared a workbench, yet their decisions meet within the same stone. Looking down through its polished surface, you can still see the evidence of an earlier way of working. Set against the texture of the gold, the unfinished-looking planes don’t feel incomplete. They are precisely what completes the ring.

[Motif] 2.0㎝(H) × 1.5㎝(W); projection: 1.3㎝