Trace Making of Jewelry at Seybold Building

By Jim Wyss, The Miami Herald

Feb. 11–Ten stories tall and brimming with diamond-studded necklaces and gold rings, the Seybold Building in downtown Miami holds the distinction of being the second-largest building in the nation dedicated to the jewelry trade.

But lost amid the glint of sparkling stones and gleaming metal are more than 200 tiny workshops and boutiques — spaces occupied by diamond cutters, gem setters and gold dealers — that underpin the jewelry industry. Before a Valentine’s Day ring is ever slipped on a finger, it might pass through the hands of a half-dozen of these artisans.

Here’s a look at just some of the craftsmen who work at 36 NE First St.

MODEL MAKERS

Before a piece of jewelry is cast in gold or platinum it often begins life as a lowly piece of wax. Using scalpels, augers and a steady hand, model makers sculpt hard blocks of jewelers’ wax into delicate rings, brooches and pendants.

While many full-service jewelers have in-house model makers, there are a handful of independent artisans that specialize in the trade.

Squirreled away on the top floor of the Seybold Building, Wilson Munilla works alone and spends 10 to 12 hours a day huddled over a workbench in his tiny shop, M&R Design. It can take a day and a half to turn a lump of wax into an intricate ring or pendant that he will sell to a jeweler for between $120 and $280. Jewelers use the models to make the molds in which they cast jewelry.

Trained as a carpenter, Munilla says he began making jewelry models in the 1990s. It’s a job that appeals to his creative bent, but one that is under fire, he says.

There are Asian sweatshops churning out models at a fraction of the price, and then there are software-driven milling machines that can turn two-dimensional drawings into finished wax sculptures.

“People are always stealing your designs, too,” he says. “So you have to keep coming up with new ideas to stay ahead of the counterfeiters.”

PRECIOUS METALS DEALERS

Beyond sentimental value, jewelry is only worth what it’s made of. Since 1952, Saul Silver has been supplying the industry with gold, platinum and his namesake (“I should have been named platinum — it’s worth more,” he says.)

When Silver, 83, entered the business, gold was $35 an ounce and under government price controls.

Studying the wall calendar where he pencils in the daily gold price as reported by the London commodity exchange, Silver reads off the recent price: “$923.25 an ounce. That’s incredibly high.”

Indeed, gold prices have soared 170 percent over the last five years.

But just because traders are speculating in gold doesn’t mean Silver can. Government accounting rules require his company, SG Findings, to maintain a stable stock — so it can’t liquidate when prices are high and stock up when prices are low. The company sells most bulk gold at about 2 percent above the London close.

SG Findings buys the metal on the scrap market — bits that jewelers have left over, or gold fillings from dentists’ offices. It’s refined off-site and brought to SG’s workshop on the third floor of the Seybold, where heavy presses turn it into the thin sheets, long wires and small pellets favored by jewelers.

While clients ask which way gold is headed, Silver says he’s not much help.

“I’ve been in this business long enough that I can tell you, without a doubt, that I have no idea what prices will be like tomorrow,” says Silver.

DIAMOND DEALERS

In the 1970s, Ygal Manelis paid $500 just for the right to apply for a job in a diamond factory in his native Israel. Now the 56-year-old routinely deals with stones that run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Manelis, who runs H&Y Diamonds on the tenth floor of the Seybold Building, buys diamonds — both rough and cut — from across the globe. Most of the gems go to jewelers and designers in the United States and Latin America looking for signature pieces.

While gold prices have fluctuated wildly, diamond prices have been rising steadily — except for a hiccup in the 1990s, he says.

Diamond dealing is a delicate profession. The trade is driven by trust, and a simple mistake — say when a hidden inclusion causes a diamond to shatter during the cutting process — can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

“It takes an artist to do this job,” says Manelis. “It takes talent to be able to buy, cut and sell — and keep the ladies happy.”

DIAMOND SETTERS

Once a piece of jewelry has been crafted and the gems selected, the components are often taken to diamond setters who specialize in mounting the stones. While many jewelers do this in house, there are also workshops that specialize in the delicate trade.

Hovering over a diamond-encircled Valentine’s Day present recently, Ernesto Ercilla, his face obscured by powerful magnifying glasses, says he charges $2.50 to mount each small pave stone and between $25 and $35 to mount a two-carat center stone, depending on the shape. For a half day’s work, say setting 25 stones, Ercilla says he might make about $65.

Working alone in a small studio on the ninth floor of the Seybold, Ercilla says he has more than enough work catering to the jewelers and designers who seek him out. But occasionally he will do repairs for walk-in clients — often fixing others’ shoddy work.

“Today you see a lot of jewelry made in Asia and there may be stones falling out,” he says. “They bring shame to this trade.”

JEWELRY MAKERS

Amber Jewelers, on the top floor of the Seybold, is one of the few full-service jewelry makers in the building. In business for 40 years, the company has seven workers who have all the skills required to make a piece of jewelry from start to finish — although they sometimes outsource parts of the process.

Overseeing work on an engagement ring crowned with a $200,000 white diamond, Walter Suarez — one of the partners in the company — says cheap imports have ruined the mass retail market. Still, he says Amber Jewelers sees strong demand for custom-ordered fine jewelry.

During his four decades in business, Suarez says the biggest change has been the new breed of computers that can make intricate wax models needed for casting.

“That’s been the biggest change,” he says. “The rest of the industry has been the same for hundreds of years.”

DISPLAY DISTRIBUTOR

A notable accomplice to a piece of jewelry is the box that it comes in. For 26 years Jewelry Display, located in front of the Seybold Building on 1 NE First St., has been providing everything from faux fingers for ring displays, to plexiglass jewelry cases and velvet-lined boxes.

Once dependent on walk-ins, most sales are now done over the company’s website, says Gaby Oleksnianski, who runs the company with his father, mother and wife.

“The business has changed 180 degrees since my father started it,” he says. “Back then, 99 percent of what we sold was manufactured here in the States and now 99 percent is imported from China.”

While jewelry stores are the company’s bread-and-butter clients, Oleksnianski says he’s received orders from car washes and day spas. “If you ever see a tray filled with jewelry at a 7-Eleven, I sell that tray.”

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