The “foundation stone” was laid.
It all started with the pictured piece of bog jasper, which had sat on our shelf for many years, found by my grandfather in the vineyards of Auggen when he was young. Even as a child, I was fascinated by this stone. During my apprenticeship as a precision mechanic at Hellma Analytics, when I first stood at the lapping machine and saw how materials were ground and polished with precision, the thought occurred to me how wonderful it would be to flatten this very jasper of my grandfather's. At that moment, childlike curiosity turned into genuine enthusiasm.
The work, requiring patience, sensitivity, and precision, immediately captivated me and ignited my passion for minerals. With each piece I polished, my desire grew to reveal the stone's natural beauty and brilliance. The polishing itself became my true passion, the foundation for everything I do today.
In 2019, I began working with my own stones. Shortly afterward, I met Fritz Schmidlin from Hach, who inspired me to really get started. He provided me with my first raw material of bog jasper for jewelry making and shared his knowledge. Thanks to his support, I understood many things that I would never have learned during my training with homogeneous materials.
Over time, I developed my own methods and was able to bring out the beauty of the stones with ever greater subtlety. The bog jasper from Auggen, in particular, has always captivated me. It connects me deeply to my homeland and tells a story thousands of years old. Tens of thousands of years ago, it was used here to make tools and blades—a thought that never ceases to fill me with awe.
A blade core I found dating from the late Paleolithic to Mesolithic period (approx. 12,000–5,000 BC).