Quality Saves Time
“I want to wear my ring all the time.”
We’ve told the story of this ring’s introduction hundreds of times. When we made the ring, we made just one. In the first week of putting it into the showcase, we had more inquiries for this one ring than all our other rings put together.
The women asking about the ring were all over 40. There’s something that someone who’s been around for four decades knows that a 20-year-old simply doesn’t. Women by age forty have learned that fussy rings with lots of small diamonds set in prongs complicate life. They simply don’t have time to have repairs and restoration work done.
Build it right, build it simply in the beginning, and the quality will save a huge amount of time down the road. Life is too short to be making decisions quickly and frivolously. Well-designed, well-made pieces simplify your life.
Here we show the most popular ring design in our 100+ year history, the Lady Captain’s Ring. It’s a perfect example of simplicity and practicality in a ring. We’ve never sold one to a 20-year-old. We’ve found good homes for hundreds of rings for women 40 and above. Why? Because women have learned by 40 that another year comes quickly and fussy rings require high maintenance and take too much time. A well-designed, well-made ring saves time.
Revolutionary Design
and Why Women Love it
In 1990 we developed a revolutionary design, The Lady Captain’s ring. It has Captain’s bars on either side of a bezel-set center gem. Women love this ring because it’s simple, low profile, solid, safe, and secure. It presents a gem in a unique, interesting, and highly wearable way.
1990 was over 3 decades ago. The Lady Captain’s ring is even more loved today than in the first year of its introduction. Visit our website to see many gems, and many colors set into our most loved ring…The Lady Captain’s ring.
December 31, 1989
The Lady Captain’s ring is the only piece of jewelry in our 100+ year history that we know exactly when it was created. It was 8:30 in the morning, December 31, 1989. We had a store-wide futures meeting. When we got to the point where I said, “What do you hear customers asking for that we don’t yet have?”
Linda spoke up. She said, “I hear customers asking for a ring we don’t have. Nurses, in particular, are coming down from Maine Medical Center and asking to see rings that have the gem set low, close to the finger, comfortable, with no prongs to catch. They say they want a ring like this because they put rubber gloves on and take them off dozens of times a day, and prong-set rings catch and snag.”
Linda’s comments really sounded interesting. We made notes, and on the following Monday, we started designing a new collection. Our first ring in the collection was the Lady Captain’s ring.
Truly, in American history, this was a revolutionary design. Over the third of a century that we have made the Lady Captain’s ring, we have found good homes for hundreds of rings. The meeting of December 31, 1989, represented the birth of a new ring series that was specially made for daily wear. Women’s lives have changed, and we adapted right along with the changes.
Why We Love These Rings
We make the Lady Captain’s ring with all kinds of gems. Blue sapphire is the most loved. The ring sits low, close, and comfortable. The gem is brilliant blue and totally protected with a smooth halo rim surrounding the gem with captain’s bars both left and right. We have hundreds of people all across America who have chosen this design.
Why a Cross Sapphire is the Best
We love blue. We know blue. We live by the blue sea, beneath summer blue skies. Our business is located on a peninsula called Portland, surrounded by saltwater on three sides. We can feel the blue ocean pulsing with every tide. From the rooftop of our building, we can see the open sea. Binoculars show ships coming and going on a blue, blue sea.
We love blue sapphire: It is bright, brilliant and is amazingly durable. As the second hardest gem to diamond, it is a highly wearable gem, ideal for rings. We love blue sapphire…we love it so much that we have traveled to southeast Asia to find first-choice colors. We choose a lighter, brighter blue than most American jewelers because it shows up best under a wide range of real-world lighting conditions. Our blue sapphires look and perform best on everything from sunny days to a candlelit dinner for two.
We want your blue sapphire to dazzle you, dazzle your partner and everyone in any room you visit. Cross’ blue sapphires are the best.
