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PRINCIPLES » TEN YEAR / PRE-MILLENNIUM THRESHOLD
PRINCIPLE
Redesign,
Recycle, Repair, Reclaim...
Laibach's Ten Year / Pre-Millennium Threshold Principle ... Working
with old Jewellery
Kerstin Laibach feels
that a piece of jewellery should have undergone some long-term
appreciation by its owner; that the precious materials extracted
from our fragile earth years before have been treated with a sense
of respect and gratitude. In recent years an increasing amount
of perfectly wearable, well-made jewellery is sold for scrap.
Often, such pieces only need professional cleaning and perhaps
minor repair work to return their appearance to a desirable item.
Laibach atelier believes
that it has found a generally accepted ethical balance when dealing
with previously used jewellery as part of the Laibach restoration,
redesigning or recycling service:
Kerstin will not usually take on the recycling of nearly new jewellery
containing recently mined materials, I.e. pieces less than ten
years old. This is in regard to pieces you wish to trade in with
us for either cash or credit on a new piece of jewellery. Even
recycling (the refining of precious metals) creates a carbon footprint,
(but obviously nothing like as huge as freshly mined). So if you
want to consider a change, based on your unwanted piece, Kerstin
can offer you a way to create something fresh from your discarded
jewellery with absolute minimum environmental impact ... and if
you wish to help reverse its carbon footprint she will offer you
the option to pay 10% extra for this service which will go to
environmental, wildlife and re-naturing projects.
On this principle, your old jewellery can be completely deconstructed
and redesigned by Kerstin into something to suit your taste, while
giving something back to the environment. We must repeat however,
that lost stones etc. cannot be substituted with new (based on
Laibach ethics). Used (antique) stones or lab-created options
can however be used as substitutes, either supplied by you the
client, or sourced by Kerstin Laibach in some cases.
PRE-MILLENNIUM PRINCIPLE
If Kerstin Laibach
creates any pieces for sale in her collections using previously
mined gems, including diamonds, these are only reclaimed from
pre-millennium / damaged jewellery of no intrinsic / historical
interest. In other words, only recycled from old jewellery originally
purchased as new before December 31st 1999.* Most often, any reclaimed
or purchased stones in Laibach piece will be genuine "old"
cut, dating the stones to the beginning of the 19th century and
much earlier.
Please note that in practice it can difficult to determine the
exact year of a more recent jewellery piece without certification
of original purchase date, but in practice Kerstin Laibach is
more likely to be reclaiming gems from pieces dated many decades
previous to Dec 1999*
* Time-Line Exception
to the Pre-Millenium Principle:
Pieces made from old precious stones reclaimed from jewellery
sent in by customers for scrap are based on our ten year threshold
principle.
MORE
INFORMATION ...
Repair and Restore - Extending a Respect for what our Planet has Provided in the Past
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