Tyler Smalley carves a model of a custom ring out of jeweler’s wax at Arney Guess Goldsmith.OnlineVisit www.aggoldsmith.com/#!video for a video walkthrough of how Arney Guess Goldsmith creates custom jewelry.
For more than 25 years, Arney Guess has custom-made jewelry, but it’s not just gold and gems that pass through his Hixson boutique.
Guess, 59, and his staff of jewelers receive about 100 custom orders a year, but for every dozen requests for diamond engagement rings, there’s one for a bear-claw necklace or a pair of earrings made from polished elk teeth. Customers have walked in with dreams of beautiful works of art made out of everything from shark teeth to spent shell casings. A belly dancer once posed in the store, in costume, so her likeness could be handcarved out of gold for a pendant.
Recently, a man ordered a wedding band made from a deer antler so fresh it was still covered in fur and sinew when he dropped it off.
“That stuff smelled up the place so bad when you start grinding on it,” laughs jeweler Tyler Smalley, the boutique’s manager and Guess’ son-in-law. “We had to open up the windows. Guys were walking out of there because they couldn’t handle it anymore.”