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 35 years 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 115-year history that we know exactly when it was created. It was 8:30 in the morning, December 31. 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. The ring sits low, close, and comfortable. The gem is brilliant pink 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.
Real Tourmaline
*Important Disclosure: We mine tourmaline in Maine, just 28 miles north of our store. 92% of all tourmaline we show and sell is found in Maine’s western mountains. Every once in a while we see a tourmaline found somewhere else in the world that is so fine, so beautiful we can’t resist. These are one of those rare, choice World gem pieces. Th pink World tourmaline found in this ring is not from Maine, but from Nigeria.
Cross’ Maine and World Tourmaline Promise
We at Cross think of ourselves as the center of the Maine tourmaline universe. We fancy ourselves to be World tourmaline savvy. We admit to keeping an eye open to tourmaline possibilities from outside our Maine borders because the gem tourmaline is the freest, most liberal, and most beautiful color expression of all gems known to mankind.
Absolute Firewall
We maintain an absolute firewall between Maine mined gems and alternative World sourced tourmaline gems. We do this because it is vital to us and we know it’s vital to you, too. We take the origin of tourmaline deeply, deeply seriously. There is never a pretend or an error. Everything is clearly marked and positively identified. Our firewall of source identity is absolute.
