The Life in Business: Mountain Gold Jewelers

Mountain Gold Jewelers is a jewelry store and design studio owned and operated by master goldsmith Moses Thrasher. Specializing in diamonds, opals and pearls of all kinds, Thrasher has been a goldsmith for over 35 years and can design and make anything you can imagine.

The story of how he started making jewelry is somewhat magical in itself. It happened during a journey across the American Southwest to visit Indian reservations.

Driving on the back roads of a Hopi reservation in Arizona, Thrasher came across a crudely painted sign that read “Jewelry.” At the end of the driveway was a weathered wooden house, which appeared to be abandoned. “I called out, but there appeared to be no one at home,” Thrasher says. He walked inside and discovered two jewelry cases. “What a shock! It was the most beautiful jewelry I had ever seen. Not your typical silver and turquoise Indian fare, but gold, lapis, opal and other precious gems. What was this incredible jewelry doing way out here?”

Hearing banging outside, he found an older Indian man crouched over a tree stump and pounding on a piece of metal with a hammer. “As I stood there I observed that he had a crude, but well-organized, semi-outdoor jewelry workshop. I was so fascinated that I knew that I needed to stay, and I started watching this artisan,” says the Kawaihae goldsmith. “He hardly spoke to me the first two days. Then it was ‘hold this’ and ‘fetch that.’ By the time I left I had observed practically every jewelry-making technique there is. I was on fire! I wanted to stop everything and make jewelry right then.”

Later he read about the man in a magazine, he says. “I discovered that the Indian man, whose name I did not even know, was the foremost American Indian craftsman of the 19th century. Royalty all over the world owned his jewelry, as did presidents and captains of industry. He has pieces in the Smithsonian. His name was Charles Laloma. Had I known that, I never would have had the nerve to expect that I could spend so much casual time with him. This was my apprenticeship. This was my brush with a master.“

When Thrasher arrived back in California, he bought his tools and set up a workbench inside his bedroom. Later he came to Hawai‘i and opened his own store, accumulating loyal customers over the past 30-some years.

To learn more about the fine jewelry of Mountain Gold Jewelers and the man who makes it, stop by the Kawaihae Harbor Center at the intersection of Kawaihae Rd. and Akoni Pule Hwy. Phone: 808.882.4653. Website: www.mtgold.com ❖