Issue date: February 24, 1999
By BUD WENDELL
A diamond medfly. A wedding ring embedded with the notes from one measure of a love song from "Phantom of the Opera." Gold house keys, replicas of pop tops from soda cans, and military dog tags.
These and many other creative jewelry items were designed and manufactured by the goldsmiths and gemologists at Timothy Fidge & Company, which is moving to Menlo Park's business district on Santa Cruz Avenue around April 1.
The business was started by Tim Fidge who learned how to make jewelry while he was stationed at a U.S. Air Force installation in Alaska during the 1960s. When he and the other servicemen weren't working on the few planes a week that landed at the isolated base, they could use their spare time learning to make jewelry or leather goods.
Mr. Fidge became fascinated with jewelry. After his discharge from the Air Force, he moved to Oregon. According to his wife, Marilyn, he "became something of a hippie and did street fairs" with his creations, working mainly with silver and turquoise.
Moving back to the Midpeninsula where he had once lived, he opened his first store, called Gold Fever, in 1976 in Palo Alto, and shifted it three years later to the store's present location in the Town and Country Village shopping center in Palo Alto.
Mr. Fidge continued to design most of the custom jewelry. One of his popular creations was the El Palo Alto pendant. According to the company's literature accompanying the item, the design was inspired by the giant redwood tree still standing at the foot of Alma Street in Palo Alto. Captain Gaspar de Portola's men, it is said, camped under this tree while exploring the coast of present-day California.
The name of the business was changed to Timothy Fidge & Company in 1987. Following his death in a small plane crash in 1989, Ms. Fidge took over the business and has operated it successfully since then.
Custom jewelry-making at the Fidge company usually begins with a meeting between customers, who have a general idea about a special piece of jewelry they want to have made, and the company's designers. When a design has been approved, the company's three goldsmiths start the manufacturing process with a wax model of the piece sculpted to its precise shape and dimensions.
After being placed in a flask and embedded in a plaster of Paris type of material, the flask is heated to 1,350 degrees Fahrenheit over a 12-hour period. This hardens the surrounding material and melts the wax, which is drained off. Gold is then melted and forced into the empty cavity of the mold by centrifugal force or a vacuum process.
After the gold ring is cast and cooled, the flask is quenched in water, and the piece is cleaned and finished.
"Every item of jewelry we make is a special challenge, and that's what's fun about this business," says designer-goldsmith Dale Friesen who has been making jewelry for 25 years. His father owned a jewelry store in Kansas, and his grandfather was a blacksmith.
Mr. Friesen and the company's two other goldsmiths, Robert Martinez and Harry Tschaplizki, have plenty of challenges and interesting stories about many of the several hundred items they make every year.
For example, the medfly ring was ordered by a helicopter pilot who met his bride-to-be while he was spraying the California citrus pest, and she was inspecting the work.
And the gold ring with the notes from "All I Ask From You," one of the hit tunes from "Phantom of the Opera," was ordered by two people who fell in love with each other and with the award-winning, long-running musical. They walked into the store one day with the sheet music and asked if some of it could be put on a piece of jewelry.
According to Ms. Fidge, the most expensive piece of jewelry the company has made and sold was a $70,000 ring.
The company's three gemologists are certified to do appraisals, and they are authorities on gemstones, says the owner. "As members of the American Gem Society, they must pass an annual examination. But we don't handle estate jewelry. Our staff has trouble keeping up with customer's special orders, and making stock items for our show cases."
Ms. Fidge, who lives in Portola Valley, is active in the community, especially working with children and supporting the Corte Madera School. Her family winery in the Napa Valley supplied a 1983 Tudal Cabernet Sauvignon for President Reagan's state dinner for the King and Queen of Sweden in 1988.
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