The story behind the Master

Brian Cundiff has been creating custom jewelry since 1984 – for almost 30 years. In the tradition of the great masters, he acquired his skill and expertise under the tutelage of Edgardo Zargon , an old-world Argentine master jeweler. It was this master who turned Brian from an eager apprentice into his heir apparent.

The story of how this came to pass is the story of a man’s destiny. The young Brian walked into a shop one day to do an errand for his mother; he simply went to get a piece of jewelry fixed. There behind the counter was Edgardo. “I was always good with my hands,” Brian recounts, “and I knew I didn’t want to work outdoors. But I had no idea what I did want to do.”
 
He walked into the shop . . . stopped . . . . looked around . . . . and said to the man behind the counter, “I’d love to learn how to do this.” Several weeks later the man called him and said, “Come in. I’ve always wanted to teach someone my way to make jewelry. It’s a dying art. I will pass it on to you.”

For 9 years Brian listened and watched and practiced and learned as an apprentice to his master and the four other masters who worked in the shop. After an additional decade of sketching, soldering, setting, cutting and polishing, Brian was able to say, “I too am a master.”

And what is his favorite part of being a Master Jeweler? With the simplicity of that teenage boy who walked into a jewelry shop and the clarity of a diamond, his answer is this: “I love to see the smile when the job is done.”