Trothe
A personal shop that makes rings properly
Trothe is the old spelling of troth: the promise in the marriage vow, and the word still living inside betrothed. A ring is that promise made into something you can wear.
Most wedding rings are bought under time pressure, from a case of whatever happened to be in stock, in whatever size that came in. We do the opposite. Every ring is made after you order it, so the width, the finish, the metal and the size are all choices rather than compromises, and the range runs from titanium at £145 to platinum and set stones.
Where the rings are made
In the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter, which has been the centre of British jewellery making since the 1700s and still holds its own assay office. Everything is cut, set and finished there, and precious metal is hallmarked before it leaves the bench. Nothing is made abroad and nothing is finished to a different standard because it is cheaper.
Coloured stones are chosen one at a time against their certificates rather than bought in bulk, which is why we can tell you the treatment on every single one.
Hallmarking, and why only some rings carry one
UK law requires gold over 1 gram and platinum over 0.5 grams to carry a hallmark from an assay office. Our precious rings are hallmarked at Birmingham, and the precious inlay in a contemporary band is too.
Titanium and zirconium are not precious metals, so no hallmark exists for them and none is required. That is not a shortcut, it is simply how the Hallmarking Act works, and anyone selling you a "hallmarked titanium ring" is describing something that does not exist.
What we will tell you that other shops will not
- Which of our rings cannot be resized. Most of them. We replace instead, free, for life.
- That gold is soft. 18ct sits around Mohs 3 and will mark in the first year. That is normal, and it polishes out.
- The treatment on every coloured stone. Most sapphire is heated. Some is fracture filled, which is a different and less valuable thing sold under the same name.
- When a material is wrong for you. The metal chooser exists partly to talk people out of purchases.
Where the name comes from
And thereto I plight thee my troth has ended the English wedding service since the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549, and the words are older still, carried over from the Sarum rite before it. A troth is a pledge: your constancy, staked on keeping the vow.
It comes from the Old English treowth, meaning faith, fidelity and covenant. Trothe is the Middle English spelling, from the centuries before English spelling settled down, and it is the one we use. It rhymes with clothe.
We chose it because a wedding ring is not really jewellery. It is a promise somebody has to keep, made in a material that can keep it.
Contact
Email hello@trothe.co.uk and a person replies. There is no chatbot and no ticket number.
About the shop
- Where are the rings made?
- In Britain, by benches in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter that have been making wedding rings there for the better part of two centuries. Precious metal is assayed and hallmarked before it leaves them.
- Why does a ring take two to three weeks?
- Because it is made after you order it, in your size, in the width and finish you chose. A shop that ships same day is shipping you whatever it happened to have in a drawer, in whatever size that was.