The only element that has never
needed to justify its beauty
Istanbul · The Grand Bazaar
79
The number began with gold. Element 79 in the periodic table is the substance that every civilisation on earth, without coordination, decided was worth shaping into something permanent. That is where the guild took its name.
But Guild 79 is not a gold brand. It is a guild of makers, founded in Istanbul, rooted in the ancient craft traditions of the Grand Bazaar, and open to every material worthy of the work. What matters is not the substance but the standard: that every piece carries the weight of place, time, and intention.
The guild does not follow trends. It follows places, the people who shaped them, and the things they leave behind.
The founding mark, , remains as a reminder of where the guild began. Not as a limitation, but as a declaration: we started with the hardest standard, the one material that does not corrode or tarnish. Everything we make, in any material, is held to that same standard of craft.
Troy, Gobekli Tepe, the Romans, the Aztecs, the Ottoman court. Every civilisation that encountered precious materials arrived at the same conclusion: that they deserve to be made into something. That is the story this guild exists to tell.
From living cities to lost civilisations
The rarest work begins not in a design studio but at an ancient site. The journey to Troy, to the plateau of Gobekli Tepe, to the deep strata of Istanbul is not a research trip; it is the work itself. The living cities follow the same instinct closer to home: every collection, wherever it starts, is rooted in a place and in what that place has carried.
The piece is designed from the place, not before it. The quality of light on the stone, the form of the ruins, what grew there: these end up, transformed, in the finished object, in the proportions of an engraved register, in the weight of a cast form.
"Artefacts for the living. Objects that carry ten thousand years of human meaning, not as museum pieces, but as things to be worn."
, Studio Statement · Istanbul
From place
to finished piece
The guild works from place. Most of what it makes is drawn from living cities, each rendered in its own roots: the metal a place favours, the forms it has long worn, the way it carries gold. New cities arrive in time, and the globe is meant to welcome every one. A few times a year the work goes further back, to an ancient site made into a small, numbered series. Both are made by the same hands in Istanbul, and both leave with the same thing: a certificate of provenance that names where the piece came from and stays with whoever owns it.
Rooted in place
Every collection begins in a place and is made from its roots. For the living cities, that means the character of a place and the way it has long worn gold. For the rare ancient series, it means a site the studio travels to in person, for the quality of the stone, the scale of the ruins, the light at different hours.
Living cities · and, a few times a year, an ancient site
Designed from it
Form follows the place, never the other way around. The work begins with what the place is: its history, its material culture, its proportions. It is drawn in dialogue with the place, not imposed on top of it. The piece comes from what the place actually is, not from what looks good in a sketch.
Hand-drawn from the archive
Made by hand
Cast or fabricated by hand in Istanbul's craft district, which has practised the goldsmith's trade since the Byzantine period. Hand-engraved where the design asks for it, with finishing carried out by hand. Each piece is examined and signed before it leaves the studio. The edition size is set before production and fixed.
Istanbul · Hand-engraved · Edition fixed before production
The provenance record
Each edition receives a certificate of provenance: the coordinates and date of the place, a signed attestation from the studio, and the edition number, bound to a unique verification link that can pass to each new owner. A QR code, sealed in the box, opens that record.
Certificate · coordinates · studio signature · verification that can transfer
The object, in the world
After an edition is sold, the collection is sealed and archived. Sold pieces enter the archive. On the globe, a sealed marker is a record, not a loss. Across series and years, the archive becomes a map of the guild's engagement with the world. The long game is not growth, but the accumulation of meaning.
Edition sealed on sell-out · Entered in the archive · Archive visible on globe
Every edition leaves with a certificate of provenance: sealed with a QR code, bound to its owner, and made to pass to the next.
Current & forthcoming series
Explore all →Istanbul Collection
Where two continents meet. Ten millennia of empire, faith, and gold layered beneath a single horizon.
Active · XII pieces availableMiami Collection
Where the Americas turn to face the Atlantic. A city raised by arrivals, its gold carried across the water as memory and worn as inheritance.
Active · X pieces available