Armenian jeweler Jack Kradjian displays the skills he learned as a young boy in Syria as he helps a customer on Feb. 9, 2010, at Manhattan's Midtown Jewelry Exchange. (Photo by Alexandra Waldhorn/CNS)

Richard Kradjian pulls out a tray of handcrafted gold and diamond rings. These works of art, many made by Kradjian’s father, Jack, have sustained their family since 1963, when Jack emigrated from Syria to New York. Following the lead of other Armenian goldsmiths, he set up a booth in the city’s jewelry district on 47th Street and got to work making custom pieces, doing repairs and selling his own designs.

Sitting at that same booth, Richard holds up a gold ring laced with diamonds in an intricate floral pattern. “It’s all about craftsmanship,” he says. “People forget that.” Unlike many of the mass-produced pieces imported from abroad, the ring feels solid and heavy. “It won’t break,” says Richard.

At age 31, Richard is one of the youngest Armenians in the jewelry district to follow in the family business. But while he buys, sells and designs his own line of jewelry, Richard doesn’t know how to create or restore the pieces himself. “When my dad retires, who will I give my merchandise to for repair?” he asks.

It’s a reasonable question. Over the past century, as a series of calamities have chased Armenians around the world, more than 1.5 million settled in the United States. Many were skilled in a craft that dates back thousands of years to a time when artisans created vases and amulets from silver and welded elaborate pieces of jewelry from gold. “Armenians make things with their hands,” says Mher Janian, 30, who immigrated to the U.S. five years ago from Lebanon, and teaches jewelry making in New

Jewelry shines from Jack Kradjian's booth during an exchange with a customer on Feb. 9, 2010. (Photo by Alexandra Waldhorn/CNS)

York. “They have that talent.”

But these stewards of an ancient art form now see their ranks thinning. As fewer parents pass the trade on to their progeny, the craft is at risk of disappearing in the U.S.

“There’s a long tradition in metal work,” says Barlow Der Mugrdechian, a professor of Armenian Studies at California State University at Fresno, “But today there are a very few number of Armenian jewelers compared to Armenians in other industries.”

Membership in the Armenian Jewelers Association, a national organization that includes goldsmiths as well as jewelry dealers, is 350, according to director Garbis Kazangian. No precise statistics are available on the number of Armenians working in the jewelry district, but those in the trade agree their numbers are going down. Vartges “Victor” Bukucuyan, 55, a versatile metalworker and partner in Pico Jewelers on 47th Street, says it’s the end for small Armenian jewelry makers — specifically those who do the repairs — when his generation stops working. “The fathers will retire at 50 or 60, and then there is no one to take their place on the bench,” he says, sitting behind a large desk in the basement floor of one the jewelry exchange buildings. “I don’t think I’ll ever retire. They’ll take my body away from here.”

Jack Kradjian displays the skills of traditional Armenian jewelery making as he restores a pair of gold earrings in the basement of the 47th Street Jewelry Exchange on Feb. 9, 2010. (Photo by Alexandra Waldhorn/CNS)

After arriving in New York in 1972 at age 16, Bukucuyan couldn’t go to school, because he didn’t speak English. Instead, he spent his days on 47th Street, watching the husband of his mother’s cousin set diamonds. By the time he knew enough English to go to school, he had opened his own jewelry business and was earning good money. “Business didn’t let me go to school,” he says.

But today, Armenian-American children rarely pick up the trade by observing their parents. “I have two girls, and they go to college,” says Bukucuyan. “My brother-in-law, he has three sons, and none of them are interested. We tried a lot. They didn’t want to be part of it. They think it’s a dying business.”

Bukucuyan’s 22-year-old daughter, Kimberley, who is currently getting a master’s degree in education, says she never considered taking over her father’s trade. The field is too male-dominated, she says, and she has always been more interested in studying education. Growing up and through college, Kimberley spent a lot time during summer breaks at her father’s booth.

“I have an idea of what happens on 47th Street,” she says, “but I can’t physically make jewelry.”

Bukucuyan understands why Kimberley wouldn’t want to join the business, especially during a recession when wages are unsteady and there are no pensions or health benefits. “It’s not Cartier,” he says. “Small mom and pops can’t afford that.”

Like Bukucuyan, most Armenian jewelers learned the craft from their fathers and family friends. “When you were 10 or 12 years old, your father would send you to do errands for friends and you’d pick up the trade,” says Richard Kradjian. His father, who lived in Syria before moving to New York, was making and selling jewelry by the time he was 12 years old.

Much of the dexterity required by goldsmiths like Kradjian is now becoming obsolete. Autocad software and machines have replaced the long hours spent

making molds for jewelry by hand, and mass-produced pieces, which sell for much less than handmade, have won over many

Diamond necklaces gleam in the window of Armenian-run Pico Jewelers on 47th Street on Feb. 9, 2010. (Photo by Alexandra Waldhorn/CNS)

customers looking for better deals.

“Everything is changing now, it’s a business,” says Janian who urges his students to experiment while also teaching them ancient jewelry designs. “It’s not an art anymore.”