Author: David Federman

If gem inlay is a simple matter of gluing mineral slivers into metal recesses, why does it take apprentices at Bagley & Hotchkiss Ltd. Three years to learn the basics of this art?

If you want to see sterling examples of precious metal inlay, look at your face in a mirror and open wide. Your fillings, assuming you have some, are perfect illustrations of this technique. Put as simply and broadly as possible, inlay is the permanent embedding of one material in another.