First , I want to say that I appreciate very much the help this
wonderful forum has to offer. As I have been metalsmithing for
only about four years, I can only hope that eventually I will be
able to to offer more myself. My contributions so far have been
being been able to offer names of places to buy materials or tools
at good prices ( I consider myself a pretty good bargain shopper)
but I guess that has some importance too. My question is - Have
any of you been to Greece ( Athens) and if so do you have any
jewelry related recommendations - i.e. shops or museums to visit
-either to look or to buy? Any tips on buying any raw materials?
Thank you in advance.
I have been to Greece, I have never seen so many jewelery shops in
one place in all my life. Everything is 22k and is handmade. Mostly
greek and etruscan design and lots of granulation. The jewelery
stores are side by side in Athens mostly catering to tourists. The
prices are quite reasonable most things are sold by the gram. I
spoke with some actual bench jewelers and hung around their shop for
a few hours one day while I was there, most were from Turkey Albania
and Armenia they were very skilled at the style of work they did. A
good shop to visit would be the Alias Luanis shop he is one of the
most famous greek jewelers. The shops are very impresive I saw gold
plates, cups and even a full sized gold punch bowl with cups and
laddle all in 22k gold, all hand raised and engraved. Athens is real
dirty the air is really bad during the summer my wife passed out
from carbon monoxide when we were in the city and I was feeling real
woozy. Go out to the islands they are alot nicer and less expensive.
Do not miss the fabulous Stathatos Collection at the National
Archaeological Museum (Patission Street 44 at the corner of Tositsa
Street), a 36-case chronological assemblage of mostly jewelry, but
also vases, statuettes, silver vessels and silver utensils, spanning
the 5th millennium BC to Post-Byzantine times, all in one room. It’s
a stunner.
I would also not miss the gold jewelry at the Benaki Museum (Koumbari
Street 1 at Vasilissis Sofias Avenue), although it is distriuted
throughout the museum.
A trip to Athens should include a visit to the Cycladic Museum. It
is outside the Plakka (sp?) and has a wonderful assortment of ancient
fiblulae, etc.
There is a saying in Greek about buying “vitrina” which means
’buying the the show window’. Wherever a shop has a window display
you can expect the prices to be much higher. Check out the things
you want in Athens but shop outside where you will find the same
items, usually, at much less cost. If you don’t find the same item,
you can always go back to Athens, since you will probably fly out of
there, and buy it there before you leave. Eve