In October 2000, Michael Parrish and Daniel Jenkins, two Northern California goldsmiths who had been business partners for years, founded Michael Daniels Collection. They had long admired the mix of precious metals known as mokume gane, and sought ways to create this beautiful, dramatic-and difficult-material. And when they realized they could, at last, develop the tools and skills to make it, they gave up their successful custom-jewelry business of ten years and started a new company just for mokume.

Mokume gane was first developed in feudal Japan by a seventeenth century master smith named Denbei Shoami who used mokume in decorative elements for Japanese swords. These fabulous pattern-welded steel blades constituted one of the highest art forms in Japan at that time, and with Shoami’s mokume furnishings, they sold for a king’s ransom in Europe. The Japanese closely guarded the secret art of fusing precious metals over generations of masters and apprentices.