DIAMOND’S ARE CERTAINLY T H I S
opal miners best friend Adrian Shultz is not your ordinary jeweller. Originally from Germany, Adrian moved to the remote mining town of Lightning Ridge in outback Australia, at just nine years old. Since then, he has been an underground opal miner, a tractor driver on one of Australia’s largest cotton properties, worked 150 metres under Botany Bay as a pressure grouter, and operated 50 tonne dump trucks in Queensland coal mines. But Adrian is most at home as a jeweller and designer - no big surprise when you consider he is a third generation manufacturing Master jeweller and designer. He’ll proudly tell you that both his father and his grandfather were both German-trained Master Goldsmiths. Born in Idar-Oberstein, Germany - renowned throughout Europe as a gemstone cutting and jewellery capital where gems from all over the world have been collected and cut since the 1400’s being a jeweller was certainly in his blood. Completing his apprenticeship under his father - Master Goldsmith, Gemmologist, Diamond Grader Gerd Schulz - helped Adrian to focus heavily on advanced technical and theoretical 52 ISSUE 75
training, including design, sketching and rendering, manufacturing using traditional and modern techniques, gemsetting, casting, opal cutting, gemmology and diamond grading. During an apprenticeship in which many of his peers were expected to be generating their employers an immediate income, Adrian’s dad actually insisted that he spend the entire first year mastering basic techniques like correctly using the tools of the trade, then mastering all the basic techniques like sawing, filing, bending and soldering, not completing any customer jobs until almost the end of his second year. Adrian believes that this set him up for success from the start. Working in many different jewellery manufacturing businesses over the last 15 years has given him a unique insight into diverse manufacturing techniques. He has operated a trade-based jewellery manufacturing and repair service to many of the Sunshine Coast’s leading independent jewellery retailers over this time. After 15 years on the Sunshine Coast, Adrian now considers himself a local, with wife Sonja and two beautiful daughters,
