The Apprenticeship

For a number of generations the Koferl family trade was jewelers. This was trade you learned through apprenticeship and was passed down through training in the family business. A jeweler is an artisan who uses metals, gems and other materials to create adornments like bracelets, earrings, rings, and necklaces. They might also be called upon to repair, adjust, clean, and appraise pieces of jewelry.

An apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeship also enables practitioners to gain a license to practice in a regulated profession. Most of their training is done while working for an employer who helps the apprentices learn their trade or profession, in exchange for their continued labor for an agreed period after they have achieved measurable competencies. Apprenticeships typically last 3 to 7 years. People who successfully complete an apprenticeship reach the "journeyman" or professional certification level of competence.

The system of apprenticeship first developed in the later Middle Ages and came to be supervised by craft guilds and town governments. A master craftsman was entitled to employ young people as an inexpensive form of labour in exchange for providing food, lodging and formal training in the craft. Most apprentices were males, but female apprentices were found in crafts such as seamstress,^[1] tailor, cordwainer, bakerand stationer.^[2] Apprentices usually began at ten to fifteen years of age, and would live in the master craftsman's household. Most apprentices aspired to becoming master craftsmen themselves on completion of their contract (usually a term of seven years), but some would spend time as a journeyman and a significant proportion would never acquire their own workshop.

In Coventry those completing seven-year apprenticeships with stuff merchants were entitled to become freemen of the city.^[3]

Subsequently, governmental regulation and the licensing of technical colleges and vocational education formalized and bureaucratized the details of apprenticeship.^{[citation needed]}

Although jewelers also work in silver and gold, and many of the techniques for working precious metals overlap, the trades of jeweler and Silversmith have distinct histories. Chain-making and gem-setting are common practices of jewelers that are not usually considered aspects of silversmiths.