Ever since the beginning of the 1900 if not even before, people knew that the best watches were "made in Switzerland". Few people were aware that most if not all the watch mechanism and casing were in fact manufactured by French people, in France, in the mountainous region of Jura, adjacent to Geneva.

I had a friend in that area. We knew each other from talking on the phone and through our correspondence.
I was in Paris during late 1970's and he dared me to come and spend a weekend at his place. It took some traveling as I had to change 3 different trains to reach him. Eventually, many hours after leaving Paris, I arrived at his little hamlet, perched on the top of a mountain peak.

He was making equipment for the watch industry. A wizard and a genius. I explained to him that we needed to slice Tiger's Eye and other hard stones into slabs and cubes, so as to make beads and other ornaments.

Because Tiger's Eye has a hardness of 7.5 on the Moe table where Diamond is 10, it has to be cut with diamond blades. Invariably, when the diamond blade was reaching the end of the slab, before final separation, it would create a tiny groove on one part and a kind of a small triangle on the other. Such slabs were mostly useless for further manufacturing and had to be recut again, to smaller sizes.

I explained to him that, for many years, I discussed this problem with the German tool manufacturers in the city of Idar Oberstein, where, for over a century, just about every inhabitant was in the business of cutting and polishing stones.

He asked me how "thick' was the diamond blade used to slice the stone. At the time, the thinnest blade available to us was of just under one mm. Point 8 or even .9. It had to be so "thick" because diamond dust had to be embedded into the main body of the blade by an electrolytic process and a certain "thick" base was necessary.

He took notes, we drank wine, I enjoyed a most unusual weekend and we became even better friends. After some 3-4 months, he phoned me in Johannesburg. He has created a special machine for me, able to cut a slice of Tiger's Eye into 4 and as many as 6 "perfect slabs".

The spindle holding the blades was able to turn 22,000 per minute, a speed unheard of at that time. To maintain that speed and hold the blades steady, he had to design special ball bearings. The diamond "blade" was not made from steel like all the others, but from pure copper and was .4 of one mm. thick. The movement, fore and back, of the table holding the slab of Tiger's Eye, was automatically controlled so that perfect, even feeding was assured.

It was a dream come true. He only made one such machine and we used it, with no problems, for 20 years.

Due to that technology, I was able to cut perfect slabs of Tiger's Eye, perfect sides, perfect corners, perfect everything. They were fitting perfectly one next to each other and we were able to create the Tiger's Eye box, as shown in this web site.

The fitting between two stone slabs cut by that system is so perfect that one can hardly see it unless one looks very carefully or follows the specific pattern on each stone Less than .05% of the Tiger's Eye mined was of the quality and size required to cut slabs for making boxes. All such material was set aside and shipped to Johannesburg. We never sold such a rough piece of Tiger's Eye to outsiders. And, for 20 years, we were the only supplier of Tiger's Eye boxes in the world.

We sold them only to very high and top quality jewelers, such as Tiffany, Cartier, Stern of Brazil, Selfridges and Auspreys in London and similar in Japan, Germany, Hong Kong.

Our Italian friends, makers of very high quality stone objects, were manufacturing extremely attractive stone boxes in Milano. From Malachite, Jasper, Verdite and many other stones. But they never had the rough Tiger's Eye nor that machine values to allow them to create Tiger's Eye boxes.

Presently, I have very few such boxes in my collection and each one is an achievement of perfection. In fact, there are two boxes in one. The interior is made from Picture Jasper to which we laminated, on the exterior, the highly selected slabs of Tiger's Eye.

I could proudly say that each box is twice unique. For the outside appearance and also for the inside. The hinge is hand crafted in Italy, especially for this box and it is gold plated.

You will be proud to own one. It is a heirloom to be left to next and next generation.

VERY IMPORTANT. Please handle the box with utmost care and attention. The hinge is calculated to hold the lid at 35 degrees, so as not to make the box topple backwards. When you open the lid, hold it with all 5 fingers and move it slowly until it reaches the final holding point. When you want to close the lid, again, use all 5 fingers and move slowly until the lid reaches the final point, resting on the base. DO NOT LET THE LID DROP!!! it could crack or otherwise damage the fine and perfect cut stone.