Flowers and Chocolates Are Nice

Real Karat Gold Is Awesome

Give flowers and chocolates, they equal 2 points. It’s good. Perhaps 3 points if you get a card and write a sincere note. Flowers and chocolates are gone in two weeks. Give gold, real gold and it’s 10 points in fine jewelry. She can wear it 100’s of times. Fifty years later she still has the gold, and your gift can be passed on to another generation. Classic real karat gold jewelry lives forever.

All The World’s Gold

Ask anyone how much gold humanity has mined in the last 10,000 years, also explaining that due to its rarity and value, almost all of the gold mined throughout the world is still with us. Ask if it were put into a simple cube what would the cube measure ninety nine percent of everyone would get it wrong they would underestimate how much gold there is.
The answer for 10,000 years of mining worldwide is a cube 72 feet by 72 feet by 72 feet. A quantity of gold for 10,000 years of hunting is infinitesimally small. 72 x 72 x 72 is it for the entire world.

I Loved Watching
Liquid Gold

When I came to work for Cross full time, one of my first jobs was casting gold jewelry. Our process was simple, primitive, but simple. We created sand molds for various ring designs… we would melt gold with a hand-held torch, then simply pour the gold into the mold, wait a few minutes for it to cool, then break the sand away. Liquid gold melts around 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and it is beautiful swirling in its crucible, beautiful in its pour, and beautiful as the steam rises from its casting housing. Then to see the finished piece revealed as the sand is pulled away was pure magic. From there the sprue was cut off, the rings filed and finished. Back in the early 70’s making jewelry seemed like magic.

Jewelry Stays in Families
for Generations

For over 100 years we have designed, built, and made jewelry. For 75 of those years we had a showroom and worked directly with the public. What we learned was how deeply people felt about their jewelry. Houses change, people move, automobiles are changed out every few years. Clothes are replaced, furniture may stay awhile but rarely is passed on to later generations. Cats and dogs come and go, children go off to college and move to other states.
It’s often jewelry which stays with us for a lifetime. Some jewelry can even be worn every day. And because we are so close to our jewelry, we grow attached to certain pieces.
We have always understood the importance that jewelry has in people’s lives which is why we design and make jewelry to last.

Gold and Your Future

Curious things happened on the way to the future. Covid came along and for everyone’s safety we, Cross, closed our retail showroom. We expanded our website and started sending emails to our national following. There were 12 of us, with 3 people in our shop creating jewelry. Now, five years later, all of us are still here. We have more time to photograph and put our favorite pieces up on our website. We study and write about more on our pieces of jewelry than ever before.

Then, gold started rising. The world woke up to the preciousness and rarity of gold. We, Cross, continued making jewelry with the full measure of gold. We never skimped in the past and we don’t now. The full measure of gold is important because you are buying a piece for yourself now, and it’s important that it be made to last a very long time if its worn carefully. 50 years from now a granddaughter is likely to inherit, and if it was made right in the beginning, it likely will work for her and her granddaughter someday.

Real Gold Real
Half of All Gold Ever Found Is in Jewelry

Humanity has searched the ends of the Earth, quite literally, to find gold. Miners did this when gold was $22.50 per ounce, $35 per ounce, and so on. We will continue to hunt for gold no matter what the price of gold is, because gold is pretty. Gold, real. Gold is rare and gold is now more precious than ever before.
The world has woken up to gold’s value. Will gold go higher? Possibly, probably, with certainty because gold is useful in so many things (electronics, computer chips, etc.). It’s non-tarnishing and thus gold made as jewelry is invaluable. Pieces of gold found graveside have passed through time 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 years unchanged… recording a moment in time as nothing else can.
Considering a piece or real gold jewelry, do more than consider. It’s your mark of this moment in time. Gold is your gift to the woman you love. It’s your gift to the Gods of time.

Gold and Human History
In 10,000 Years of Humanity All the Gold Ever Found
Would Fit into a Cube Measuring
72 Feet by 72 Feet by 72 Feet

Gold is rare. Gold is exceedingly rare. It’s rare and beautiful too. Every fleck of gold ever found is still with us today. All gold ever found would fit into a block 72 feet by 72 feet by 72 feet. Seems tiny for an entire planet of things. 72 feet by 72 feet by 72 feet is the total gold ever found. It’s the size of a small office building.
Why is gold special? We have 100+ elements, gold is number 79 on the periodic chart it has certain properties that make it unique among elements. It’s dense. It’s heavy, it’s invulnerable to attack by almost anything. Its stability allows it to be a perfect marker of time in human history. Coins with dates 1,000 or even 2,000 years before now, date an era perfectly. And because the coin was made from gold it’s identical to the coin that was buried 1,000 years or 2,000 years before.

Why is Gold Special

Gold made into jewelry 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 years ago comes out of the ground looking just as it did thousands of years before when it was first created. Ancient coins with dates preserve the art and artistry of humanity perfectly. Iron, wood, ivory all fade with time. Gold endures. Which is why we make wedding rings in gold and why we set diamonds and precious gems in gold. Gold lasts, gold endures the gift of gold is a slice of eternity it’s a small piece of that cube 72 feet by 72 feet by 72 feet. It’s your piece of Earth’s rarest treasure honoring who you love.
Gold is ductile which means it can be flattened and stretched. One ounce of pure gold can be pulled into a wire 50 miles long. One ounce of pure gold can be hammered into a thin sheet of gold 100 foot square. Our Cross sign was made a ½ century ago. The words Cross Jewelers were done in gold leaf. The words are as glittery gold today as they were 50 years ago. I watched the sign maker do the gold leafing. I think about that as an example of the endurance of gold.
Think back to that 72 foot by 72 foot by 72 foot of gold block. Half of that block exists as jewelry. Meaning half of all the gold in the world is made as jewelry do you have several pieces of gold jewelry. You then have a piece of the block.

Gold
Is Almost Indestructible

The sun is warm, glowing, comforting. The sun is a welcoming arrival to your new day. Gold is rare, limited, and almost indestructible. Almost! If it was indestructible we might not feel as close to it as we do. Absolute indestructibility would be a challenge, we would step up our questions and challenge our premise.
How could gold be so superior? Gold is not perfect but its close, and because gold is rare and beautiful and possess a number of attributes that allow us to hold it close, to touch the skin we value it. We keep track of it. All of society has universally agreed that we watch gold closely and the fact that it can be recycled, re-melted, and reused has allowed gold to stay with the human family for over 10,000 years.
What have we found in 10,000 years of searching… is only 72 by 72 by 72 cubic feet of gold for the entire world. Gold’s price was artificially held low for 38 years by the American government. Roosevelt closed the gold window in 1933. America held gold’s price at $35 per ounce for almost 40 years. Our government offered to sell gold to any country in the world because we held 12 tons of gold. We established the price of gold for the world for 40 years, while holding more gold than any country in the world.
In 1971 Nixon opened the gold window. Americans could own gold again. Interestingly the price of gold tripled quickly. The world was recognizing the real rarity and value of gold. In less than 10 years gold’s value increased to almost 25 times more. From 1971 gold has fallen and risen many times. Today October 2025 gold is now over 100 times more over the price of gold in 1971.
So here is some simple math. The gold bars at Fort Knox each weigh 400 troy ounces. As of February 22, 2025 gold was $2,950. The value of a good delivery bar or 400 troy ounces was $1,180,000. Where will the price or value of gold go 1 year from now. It’s possible it could be more or it could be less. If anyone knew they could own the world. Gold could be $3,000, $4,000, $5,000 per ounce or it could be $2,000 or $1,000 per ounce, no one knows.
Good delivery bars sit in safe deposit vaults. One ounce gold coins can sit in a safe deposit box or sit in a home safe. Its value can rise or fall regardless of what the owner thinks or feels. Fine jewelry is loved. It’s worn. Fine jewelry can be just gold or it can be the holder of precious gems. Fine jewelry is cherished for its beauty, sentiment, and source as a gift. When jewelry is given in love, there is another dimension of reality that is added to the underlying preciousness. This sentiment becomes more valuable than the current dollar value of gold and gems. Gold holds sentiment. It’s important to recognize the unique position gold holds in our human world.

My First Lessons
to Become a Jeweler

Noon March 28 1960 we had Amato’s Italian sandwiches for lunch. I began my apprenticeship to become a jeweler. I was 11, I was in the 6th grade and I was very nearsighted meaning that with my glasses off I could see things up close with what some might call a super-human power. My grandfather Lin Cross showed me the first principles of jewelry making… saw piercing. He started with a thin piece of pine wood 4mm thick and with a coping saw showed me how to cut a straight line. Saw to a corner back the saw up and slowly cut away the material in the corner to be able to maneuver the width of the blade to allow sawing off in a new direction.
In the first hour I understood the principles. He taught me jeweler’s posture and proper holding of the saw. In the second hour he had a sheet of metal he called nickel-silver it was 5 inches long by 2 inches wide by 7/10mm thick. Engraved on the surface were the initials ‘P’. The ‘P’s were engraved. Done head to tail to maximize the surface area and to use the material most efficiently. He demonstrated, and then I tried. He brought out a jeweler’s coping saw with hair-thin sawblades and taught me how to go slow and be precise. The engraved line was less than a millimeter. The line had a width to it and depth. I didn’t realize at the time but he insisted my pierced line be precisely at the edge of the slope and perfectly straight, which would reduce the finishing time. By 3 O’clock of that day, I had mastered the principles of jewelry saw piercing. My grandfather paid me $10.00 for my 3 hours. Which in 1960 was a huge sum of money.
My grandfather gave me the saw frame, two dozen saw blades, a pine V-notched board, a large C-clamp, and another nickel-silver sheet with engraved ‘P’s. He said, “Saw these out, scotch tape your letter ‘P’s to a card, mail it into Cross, and write down your time. We will send you a check for your work”.
Grandfather complimented me on doing well. He said if I really liked doing this type of thing because silver and gold had a real value, the saw dust and scraps had a value and would need to be caught in a pan and saved for recycling. Grandfather lived on Cumberland Foreside, I lived on a country farm in Gorham. Cross Jewelers is in Portland. It was 5 miles to Portland. I had a shop in the basement of my dad’s house and set up my lab and saw piercing spot in a private room in Gorham. By the end of April 1962 I had become an apprentice for Cross Jewelers working on real silver jewelry and then gold jewelry.

Gold Is Rare

If you own a gold coin or a piece of gold jewelry you own a piece of Earth’s 72 foot x 72 foot x 72 foot cube of pure gold. Humanity has spent 10,000 years gathering this block of gold. Gold is rare. Gold is precious. Gold is unlike any other element created by nature. Gold’s color is yellow-orange. Gold’s molecules hold together in ways that allow an ounce of gold to be stretched into a wire 50 miles long, or flattened into a tissue thin sheet 100 feet by 100 feet.
Gold is impervious to almost all chemicals. Meaning that when gold is sunk in a ship or buried as treasure, 500 years later when found, it looks pristine new, gleaming in gold as the day it was first formed. Gold is Earth’s most precious, most rare element, and all the gold that has been found in the last 10,000 years is still with us. All the world’s gold would fit in a cube 72 foot x 72 foot x 72 foot.
Do you have some part of this historic cube of gold? Half of all gold found is in jewelry. Rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. Consider what you own. Consider its meaning to you. Think about when you received your first piece of gold jewelry. Consider how, when, and where you wear it. Gold’s history parallels mankind’s history. As jewelers we honor and celebrate gold’s precious nature and gold’s exquisite rarity. We are privileged to have the opportunity to design create and offer fine gold jewelry to you and those you love.

Your Piece of
the 72 Foot Block of Gold

Humanity has literally gone to the ends of the Earth searching for gold. We have traveled to the hottest driest places on our planet. We have braved fierce snows and howling winds and plunging temperatures to find gold. We have dug tunnels in solid rock and burrowed deep within the Earth to find flecks and specks of gold. And in 10,000 years everything we have found has yielded an amount of gold the size of a cube 72 feet x 72 feet x 72 feet. It’s a tiny amount of gold.
Do you have your piece of this 72 foot block of pure gold? Most likely your share is in jewelry. A wedding ring, earrings, a necklace, bracelet, or a colored gem ring set in gold. Gold is precious, gold is rare. Gold glows like the sun, warm and golden and when it touches the skin it imbues us with its magic.

Touching Gold
Being Touched by Gold

Gold worn as a ring is worn at the most powerful place on the human body, our hands. Our hands are our humanity. It is with our hands we have created civilization. We have traveled through the desert, through the searing heat and scorching dry conditions to find gold. We have traveled north where temperatures plunge below zero. We have trudged through waist-high snow to arrive in locations where we can pan for gold for the two months of summer. We have searched islands far from home to look for long-lost buried treasure.
While a man may have a gold ring or a gold watch, what he’s really seeking in gold is something to truly honor a loved one. Gold becomes an ultimate expression of revering someone’s preciousness, which is why half of all the gold ever found is made as jewelry.
We understand the preciousness of gold and its deeper symbolic meaning which is why when we design we build our pieces to last.

When Real Gold Touches You
You Radiate a Special Type
of Energy

Half of all gold ever found is in jewelry. Gold jewelry is in all countries and is spread all over the Earth. Gold jewelry is owned and worn by the human family. 95% of gold is worn by women. Because when real gold touches the skin it glows. Women understand gold’s magic and allure. Slip the gold ring on and feel it’s power on your hand. As you talk, you gesture and your ring traces invisible lines in the air forming an underlying architecture for your words. This is why when a man loves a women, the ultimate gift he gives is gold.

Earrings in real karat gold are a spiritual awakening. Worn at the ear they are book ends for holding your companions attention. They glint and gleam in orange-yellow, they shine and spark interest. You can feel the earrings as you wear them. You can feel your companion leaning in, listening more closely to everything you say. A great pair of earrings hold your audience.

Even more powerful are dangle earrings because as they move, you catch and hold the eye of your companion. You will feel their hypnotic energy. You can see it in the eyes of your companion the captivating magic of your earrings. You can feel the swing as you move, when you laugh, as you talk. And lean back, they swing. Lean in to make a point, they sway. Earrings, like clothing, make a statement. Your presence is more easily remembered when you wear a great pair of earrings.

A necklace is precious because it comes so close to your heart. Even the gold chain we use on almost all of our necklaces the Cross petite tiff is 14 karat yellow gold. At 18 inches, it drops the pendant to within 2 inches of your heart. As you wear a gold necklace lean forward and you can feel your necklace lift off your skin. Reach to the right, to the left and you should feel the pendant swing side to side. To be so close to this piece of gold as it touches you, it glows. And you know it, because you can feel it.

A bracelet, If it its real gold, has a lot of gold in it to make it all the way around your wrist. This piece of jewelry will be heavy. A bracelet in gold is a serious commitment to fine jewelry. Wear this and you friends will wonder if the gold bracelet is real. More importantly you know and can feel the potential and power this bracelet possesses. A gold bracelet of real karat gold makes you stand taller, stand straighter, and adds to your stature, presence, and posture. Who could have imagined so much elegance might be held in a simple bracelet around your wrist.

A ring, we have saved the ring for last because rings are the single most powerful piece of jewelry. You can see a ring even when you’re wearing a sweater or coat. It is there almost magically for you and the world to see. While rings can be all gold most often they hold a gem of color. The style, the design tells one story. The gem comes with its own story. Combine the two stories together rand you have chapter 1 of a great novel. Rings and their gems possess an energy vortex an aura of elegance that can change your life. You know this to be true, sit with your hand without the ring, then slip the ring on. Notice the difference. Try it on and off. Again, you will feel the energy shift as you slide the ring on. Rings are powerful.

First Gold
A Gold Class Ring

I bought my first item of gold in 1966. It was a 10 karat gold class ring. It was set with a large oval ruby. I remember sitting in class next to the western windows in the afternoon to watch the sunlight playing on the gold and reflect through the gem. I should have been paying attention to what was going on in class, but I wasn’t. I was mesmerized by having real gold and what I believed to be a real ruby. I chose sunny window seats during my senior year to be able to dream about gold.