Introduction
Joyful Crow Only Uses Ethical Diamonds in Their Pieces
The other day I was researching looking at jewelry blogs when I discovered Open Source Minerals an ethical supplier of metals, diamonds and gemstones. I am not endorsing this company because I haven’t used them. I don’t have the money right now or the tools to use their materials, which I will explain later on.
The Pros
Open Source Minerals seems to provide really good information about where they get their supplies. Buying ethical supplies, especially diamonds is really hard in the jewelry world. The company seems to be pretty transparent and has even resigned from the Responsible Jewelers Counsel, on September 15th 2010, because of inaction with a client in Zimbabwe.
That is sticking to ethics in my book. Lots of groups will ignore inaction, but to Open Source Minerals ignoring a problem is the same as endorsing it. The owners of Open Source Minerals check on the mines and cutters they use regularly to verify that they are following the company’s ethical principles. In addition the website is simple and easy to use which makes for quick loading.
The Cons
For me there are a few cons that really stick out. First, they only sell casting metal. They sell silver, gold, white gold and platinum casting metal, which is nice if you have a mill or do a lot of casting. The problem is that most small time metal people like me don’t have the tools, or the time, to make our own sheet and wire from casting supplies.
When I do small scale casting in my studio, usually from a cuttlebone, I am using my left over scrap silver. Why would I buy more casting silver when I have tons of scrap I need to use anyway? If I do a larger casting project I always send it out to a foundry like Race Car Jewelry.
The next issue I had was that there were no photos on their page of the actual material. Yes a simple clean page is nice to have but some photos of the work would be nice. I would like to buy more ethical and environmentally friendly materials but I am not going to buy any stone that is ugly.
Lastly the vast majority of stones I do buy are semiprecious cabochons. I do have a source for cabochons from Lapidarious, which sells ethical produced cabochons. It would be nice though if Open Source Minerals either had ethically produced cabochons or gave links to places that sold them.
Conclusion
VK Designs Uses Recycled Metal, Conflict Free-Diamonds & Donates to the No Dirty Gold Campaign
Although this is a company I would like to use with my current studio I really can’t. This company would be a great source for ethical metals for people who have larger operations and can make their own sheet and wire this would be a great source for ethical metals. Maybe if I expand more into diamonds and gemstones I might buy a few from Open Source Minerals but I will be hesitant if there are no photos posted of the stones.
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