Lapidary Gary, Beautiful stone jewelry made with a special touch, featuring an image of Gary Olson holding up a stone cabochon he polished by hand.

Lapidary Gary's Hand-Crafted Stone Jewelry

Argentium Silver Wire-Wrapped Stone Jewelry

Lapidary Gary's "Special Touch"

Gary Olson, of Powell, Wyoming, has been totally blind since infancy. He enjoys grinding and polishing semi-precious stones, all by touch. Gary's wife, Ilene, mounts the stones into jewelry.

It takes nine steps to tranform a piece of rough rock to a beautifully polished cabochon. Although Gary can't see the cabochons he creates, he loves the transformation the rock goes through, and the feel of the wonderfully smooth surface of the polished stones.

Gary was featured in a Wyoming PBS episode of Wyoming Chronicle in December 2020. In the program, he talks about his love of lapidary work (rock grinding and polishing) and how he uses his other senses to tell when a stone cabochon is polished to perfection. To view the program on YouTube, visit tinyurl.com/wyopbsGaryOlson/.

Jewelry Stone Sizes

For reference, 25 millimeters equal 1 inch. Therefore:

• An 8x10 mm stone is 0.32 inches by 0.4 inches

• A 10x12 mm stone is 0.4 inches by 0.5 inches

• A 10x14 mm stone is 0.4 inches by 0.6 inces

• A 13x18 mm stone is 0.5 inches by 0.7 inches

• An 18x25 stone is 0.7 inches by 1 inch

• A 22 x30 mm stone is 0.9 inches by 1.2 inches

• A 30x40 mm stone is 1.2 inches by 1.6 inches.

• The mounting adds to the overall size of the jewelry.