The story behind the passion

The 'Foundation Stone' was Laid

It all began with the illustrated Bohnerzjasper (Auggen Hornstone), which has been on our shelf for many years, found by my grandfather in the Auggen vineyards when he was young. Even as a child, this stone fascinated me. During my apprenticeship as a precision mechanic at Hellma Analytics, when I first stood at the lapping machine and saw how materials are ground and polished with precision, the thought occurred to me how beautiful it would be to flat-grind exactly this jasper of my grandfather's. In that moment, childlike curiosity turned into genuine enthusiasm.

The work involving patience, finesse, and precision immediately captivated me and simultaneously ignited my passion for minerals. With every piece I ground, the desire grew to make the natural beauty and luster of the stone visible. Grinding itself became the actual passion, the 'foundation stone' for everything I do today.

In 2019, I started processing my own stones. Shortly thereafter, I met Fritz Schmidlin from Hach, who inspired me to really get started. He provided me with my first raw Bohnerzjasper material for jewelry making and shared his knowledge. Thanks to his support, I understood many things that I never would have learned with homogeneous materials during my apprenticeship.

Over time, I developed my own methods and was able to bring out the beauty of the stones more and more finely. The Bohnerzjasper from Auggen, in particular, has never let go of me. It connects me deeply with my home region and tells a millennia-old story. Even tens of thousands of years ago, it was used here to make tools and blades, a thought that always fills me with reverence."

The picture shows a blade core I found from the late Palaeolithic to Mesolithic period (between 17,000 and 7,000 years ago)