As the year comes to a close, we want to express our deep gratitude to our customers, admirers, and followers. We love creating timeless, heirloom pieces for you and your loved ones. Thank you for choosing Arn Krebs for your custom Mokume Gane pieces.
Every year comes with its lumps, so let’s be frank and talk about this year’s: gold. It’s no secret that the price of gold has skyrocketed over the last year. Rising 60% in 2025, gold’s prices exceeded expert and analyst expectations when it hit over $4000 per ounce. It surpassed our expectations, too. Mokume Gane relies on precious metals like gold to create its layered, multi-colored and dimensional designs.
Aside from desirability, gold is special in the science of Mokume Gane. Gold is a soft metal, which will form liquid phase diffusion bonds with other metals without completely melting. The higher the karat gold, the purer the form, and the softer the metal. While 24 karat gold is not as durable as lower karat alloys, it is the most valuable. The alloying metals in lower karat gold make it less expensive and more durable, but also less valuable and considerably harder to melt. Getting the perfect alloys for each Mokume Gane design is both a science and an art. After decades perfecting his craft, Arn has hit, well, gold.
While gold (and gold jewelry) will always be a good investment, historical market patterns suggest that the price per ounce for raw materials will not stay in the stratosphere forever. Experts predict a decrease, and that will be a good thing for jewelry artists, and their customers.
In the meantime, we have to get creative.
We’re working on proprietary new pieces and designs to bring costs down for our customers who are looking for quality Mokume Gane designs, at more mid-market pricing. Stay tuned for updates!
We use recycled materials whenever possible as an eco-conscious commitment to our environment. If you have gold you would like to ‘upcycle’ into a Mokume Gane design, please Contact Us. Not all items can be used for this purpose, but it may be a way to reduce material cost for your custom design.
Mokume Gane’s patterns reflect the beauty we see in nature: grains of wood, waves in the water, swirls of wind-whipped snow. These symbols were historically meant to bring peace to the wearer, and it is our hope that our unique designs will do just that. Wishing you peace and wellness through the holiday season, and looking forward to an exciting 2026!