Goldschmied Simon Eichmann

Simon Eichmann runs a one-person goldsmith atelier at Unterer Graben 21 in Winterthur's old town, and the site is built around a distinction that matters if you're shopping for a ring rather than browsing jewellery in general: Verlobungsringe (engagement rings) and Eheringe & Partnerringe (wedding and partner rings) sit in the main menu as two separate sections, each with its own page, its own process description and its own published price band, rather than one catalogue you have to filter. For a couple trying to work out where they are in the buying process before they even walk in, that split alone is useful.

Engagement rings, made to a published price

The engagement ring page describes a workflow rather than a shelf of stock: you bring an idea, Eichmann sketches it, then transfers the sketch into a CAD 3D model so you can see the design before any metal is cut, and follows that with a 3D-printed plastic model of the actual ring so you can hold the shape and proportions in your hand before committing. Only after that does he make the piece, in white, yellow or rose gold, set with diamonds or coloured stones such as garnet or ruby. The site puts a number on the wait: about 4 to 6 weeks from the first conversation to a finished ring.

It also does something a lot of small ateliers avoid, which is put real numbers on the page. A modern, simple design runs CHF 1500 to CHF 3000. A design that mixes modern and classic elements runs CHF 3000 to CHF 4500. A fully traditional-classic ring runs CHF 4500 to CHF 6500. The site is clear that the exact figure inside each band depends on the ring's weight and the stones you choose, but having three named bands at all, rather than "price on request", is unusual enough among the small Winterthur workshops to be worth flagging on its own.

Wedding and partner rings, the same process, a different price sheet

The wedding and partner ring page runs the identical method: an idea discussed together, a sketch, a CAD model, a 3D-printed test piece, then the finished pair. The site again gives a build time of about 4 to 6 weeks. Where it differs is the finish and the price. Options include white gold with a filed surface texture, yellow gold with a milled texture, rose gold with a hammered texture, or a plainer traditional-classic yellow gold pair. Structured, textured designs run CHF 4000 to CHF 7000 for the pair; the plainer traditional style runs CHF 3000 to CHF 5000 for the pair. Again, this is priced per couple, not per ring, and again the site is upfront that stone choice and ring dimensions move the number within the band rather than the number being fixed.

The Anfertigungen (custom work) section covers a third case: reworking inherited jewellery you already own rather than starting from raw metal. Eichmann remounts old stones into a new design, or, if the original piece can't reasonably be reused, offers stones from his own gemstone stock to choose from instead. The page invites a non-binding consultation to start that conversation, which costs nothing to explore before you decide whether a rebuild is worth it.

The story behind the counter

The atelier's own site carries a reprint of a 2021 profile from the regional paper Der Tössthaler that fills in who is actually making these rings and why the workshop exists in its current form. Eichmann didn't start out as a goldsmith. He trained first as a design and mechanical engineer, and for years his real focus was competitive floorball (Unihockey), which took him as far as Switzerland's junior and men's national squads. He stepped away from the sport near age 30, decided his engineering job no longer held enough of his interest, and went back to a childhood fascination with gemstones and minerals that his grandfather, an amateur mineral prospector in the Swiss mountains, had first sparked in him. He retrained as a goldsmith through an apprenticeship at Mojo Design in Winterthur.

That apprenticeship is where the current atelier's history connects to its past: an apprentice exchange introduced Eichmann to Ruedi Derks, who had been running the workshop on Unterer Graben since 1972. In 2019 Eichmann spent several weeks there as an intern and picked up techniques, in his own words, that his own training hadn't covered. When Derks began planning retirement and looking for a successor, Eichmann put himself forward. The two worked the shop together for roughly a year so the handover wouldn't be abrupt, and in July 2021, at 39, Eichmann took the atelier over in his own name. The story is corroborated independently: a separate Tages-Anzeiger piece from June 2021, "Der Praktikant übernimmt den Laden", covers the same handover. Eichmann has said he wants to keep running the shop "in the spirit of Derks's work", Derks still stops by to help, and Eichmann's own contribution so far has been to start digitising the atelier's workflow, which likely explains why a one-person old-town workshop already offers CAD previews rather than sketches alone.

How it's organised, and what a newcomer to Zürich should weigh

The atelier is closed Monday, open Tuesday to Friday from 9am to noon and again from 1:30pm to 6pm, and Saturday from 9am to 4pm. There's no online booking calendar; contact runs through a phone number and an email address published on the contact page, and the custom-work section's own pitch is to arrange a non-binding appointment rather than fill in a spec form, which points to a phone-first or email-first process rather than a walk-in-only one.

For someone new to the Zürich area weighing this shop specifically, a few things the site does not say matter as much as what it does. It is entirely in German, with no English version of any page and no mention anywhere of English-speaking service, so an email opener in English is a reasonable way to test the water rather than an assumption either way. Nothing on the site addresses shipping a finished ring abroad, VAT or duty handling for a buyer who might leave Switzerland again after a posting of only a few years, or resizing and after-sales terms once a ring has been delivered, so those are questions to raise directly in that first email rather than figures to expect on the page. And because the atelier only started operating under Eichmann's own name in 2021, there's no long trading history to point to and, as of writing, no guest reviews on the local business directories that list it, meaning your evidence for quality is the site's own descriptions and the workshop's continuity with Derks rather than a paper trail of independent customer feedback.

Who it suits, and the verdict

This is a fit for a couple who want a ring built specifically for them, with the price range known upfront, from a goldsmith who trained under the previous owner rather than one who bought a going concern cold. It suits someone comfortable starting the relationship over email or phone in a workshop that runs on personal trust rather than a sales counter, and it suits a budget-conscious buyer, since even the top engagement-ring band tops out well below what a name jeweller on Zürich's Bahnhofstrasse would typically ask for comparable custom work. It's a weaker fit if you need English confirmed before you show up, or if you want a business with decades of your own city's reviews behind it rather than a young proprietorship still building that record.

Set against what the atelier does show in writing, that's a minor caveat rather than a reason to look past it: two dedicated ring sections with published price bands and build times, a CAD-and-3D-print process that lets you see the ring before it's made, and a documented, two-source-confirmed handover from a goldsmith who'd worked the same address since 1972 to the one who trained under him. For a newcomer to Zürich who wants a genuinely made-to-order ring at a transparent price and doesn't mind writing the first email in whichever language feels natural, it's a solid pick a short train ride out of the city centre.