Hi All,
I researched this ‘hand made’ issue at some point when I was asked
by a friend whether the entire piece I presented could be considered
hand made.
The FTC, as mentioned, has the terms on their web site for a
gander…
I suggest everyone book mark this FTC page:
The above is a list of terms that the FTC considers jewelers to
misuse all of the time.
In particular, ‘hand made’ says:
/(a) It is unfair or deceptive to represent, directly or by
implication, that any industry product is hand-made or
hand-wrought unless the entire shaping and forming of such
product from raw materials and its finishing and decoration were
accomplished by hand labor and manually-controlled methods which
permit the maker to control and vary the construction, shape,
design, and finish of each part of each individual product.
Note to paragraph (a): As used herein, "raw materials" include
bulk sheet, strip, wire, and similar items that have not been
cut, shaped, or formed into jewelry parts, semi-finished parts,
or blanks.
(b) It is unfair or deceptive to represent, directly or by
implication, that any industry product is hand-forged,
hand-engraved, hand-finished, or hand-polished, or has been
otherwise hand-processed, unless the operation described was
accomplished by hand labor and manually-controlled methods which
permit the maker to control and vary the type, amount, and effect
of such operation on each part of each individual product./
Note that interestingly RAW MATERIALS includes wire and bulk sheet,
etc…
So, this would indicate that get your wire from Stuller, bulk sheet
from Rio Grande, and your bezeling from Otto Frei, adding in some
part from Metaliferous or such, and as long as you controlled how the
parts go together in shape, design and finish, then it can be called
hand made.
On the other hand, without the ‘Note’ section I would have expected
a rule that means you need to take raw silver from the rock, after
mining it ‘by hand’, doing the refining process by hand, and then
rolling, pulling the wire, etc.
The FTC rule appears to be reasonable.
HTH
Cheers!
Christopher