Probably The World's Greatest Jeweller

I appreciate the work that must go into the pieces, but they're way too over the top and gaudy for my taste, also.

Ok, we added "probably" to the title, which is the qualifier the article uses when it introduces him in the text itself.

Even if this jewelry were made out of glass and steel, it wouldn't be mistaken for costume jewelry. If you look at pave in costume jewelry, there's usually a lot of setting/metal between the stones, and the stones are usually the same size, and the variation from stone to stone (color, type, shape, etc) is minimized. This makes it easy to mass-manufacture. If you take a close look at the JAR jewelry (https://s3.amazonaws.com/beautifulnow_production/uploads/cke...) each stone is slightly different, and perfectly sized/chosen to fit in its own little space. There are areas along broad sections of the petal where you might have a few smaller stones perfectly nestled among larger stones -- this gives the impression of a more organic piece, that just sprung out of the ground, plated in diamonds.

These are actually examples higher-end jewelry (real gold and diamonds, although mass-manufactured): http://slimages.macys.com/is/image/MCY/products/5/optimized/...

http://www.wixonjewelers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/rose... in a similar pave style. You can see all the diamonds are identical, you can see the settings clearly (more metal/space to work with, easier to set)

This is another example of pave with better coverage: http://i00.i.aliimg.com/wsphoto/v4/1383610324_1/Full-stones-... Still, uniform diamonds, each one is interchangeable with every other one. In the JAR jewelry, it's obvious that each diamond was carefully chosen for its place, the settings are harder to do, and there's more color variation throughout.

There's obviously more to it than that, but that might be a good thing to look for when you're considering the artistry that went into these. Also, keep in mind, they're not really meant to be worn like day-to-day "jewelry" jewelry we're used to seeing around. They're more like tiny pieces of elaborate gemstone art.

>> Something also tells me that if this guy wasn't absolutely stinking rich but was just a regular grumpy 70-something, there would be significantly fewer people fawning over his egotistical temperament.

You're forgetting the thing about him where he makes art that is unbelievably beautiful. He says himself he'd still do it even if his materials were worthless.

But who knows why people want to spend hundreds of thousands to own it.

"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand." - F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Rich Boy"