About the Dies

Wayne S. Burch is an American impression-die engraver whose work draws deeply on Victorian and Art Nouveau silversmithing. His dies are widely used by studio jewelers in the U.S. and represent some of the most refined contemporary die-engraving in the country.

Ron Landis is a master engraver associated with the Gallery Mint Museum and Gold Bug Engraving. His work in coin and medallion engraving has been recognized by the American Numismatic Association, and his dies translate that flat-relief precision into wearable jewelry.

William Rice is an American engraver working in Potter USA's rolling-mill range, with a body of work centered on hummingbirds and floral motifs. His designs lend themselves particularly well to the elongated tapers used for cuff and bracelet work.

Jules von Pfetten produced the bulk of the JVP-prefix dies in Potter USA's catalog. Many of those dies reference historical French jewelry houses by name in their titles — a form of homage threaded through the work.

Verify exact biographical details with Potter USA before printing on cards.

Otto Krepel was a German engraver whose dies entered Potter USA's catalog through historical channels. Period attribution should be confirmed with Potter before final printing.

Verify period and biographical details with Potter USA.

La Forge is the maker named on a small set of French-origin dies in the Potter catalog, including the Dragon Bracelet and Great Aster Mandala. Exact biographical attribution remains to be confirmed.

Attribution and dates pending confirmation with Potter USA.

Maison Vever was one of the premier French Art Nouveau jewelry houses. Henri Vever (1854–1942), grandson of the founder, ran it at its height and was also a serious historian of the craft — his three-volume La Bijouterie Française au XIXe Siècle remains a primary reference for the period.

Whiting & Davis is the oldest American mesh manufacturer, best known for the fine-mesh evening bags that became a status object from the 1900s through the Jazz Age. Still in operation today, it is one of the longest-running jewelry/accessory houses in the United States.

Riker Brothers was one of the Newark jewelry houses that made the city the center of American fine-jewelry production around the turn of the 20th century. They worked in plique-à-jour enamel and naturalistic Art Nouveau motifs, and their pieces are now collected as representative of the American take on the style.

Unger Brothers was a Newark silversmithing firm that produced some of the most recognizable American Art Nouveau silver — flowing female figures, mythological subjects, and dreamlike imagery stamped from steel dies. The Medusa motif is one of their signature designs from the height of the style around 1900–1910.

Shreve & Co. was founded in San Francisco in 1852 and is the oldest retail jeweler still operating in the western United States. Their late-19th-century work — fluted columns, classical figures, hand-engraved silver — is highly collectable and recognizable.

Waite, Thresher & Co. was a New England silversmithing firm known for ornate filigree and Art Nouveau-period work. Providence at the turn of the century was a center for American jewelry manufacture, and Waite, Thresher was one of the houses that defined the style.

Breuning is a German jewelry firm based in Pforzheim, Germany's historical jewelry-manufacturing center (the "Goldstadt"). The city has produced fine jewelry continuously since the late 18th century, and Breuning is one of the long-running family firms in that tradition.

Rostaing was a French Art Nouveau jeweler. Like many of the smaller workshops of the period, surviving documentation is limited, but the work survives in the form of dies and reproductions like these.

Augustus Bertrand was a French scarab and glyptic artist working in the early 20th century, when Egyptian-revival motifs swept European jewelry following the discoveries at Saqqara and the later Tutankhamun excavation. Period attribution should be verified before printing.