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A high school dropout who became one of America’s leading society jewelers, Raymond C. Yard’s life was as colorful as his inventive gem-set jewelry designs.

That life, and life’s work, is the subject of a new book, The Life and Magnificent Jewelry of Raymond C. Yard, by Natasha Kuzmanovic (Vendome Press). The book explores the larger than life tale of Yard and the company he founded.

“Both the man and his designs represented flawless integrity, discretion, an impeccable choice of stones, modesty in taste, and subdued manner,” Kuzmanovic says. “As far as Yard’s pieces, they showed the same workmanship on front and back of the pieces. Stones were expertly chosen for their cut and quality and how they worked into the designs. Yard had an uncanny understanding of the world in which he was designing. He knew his clients wanted timeless, enduring classic sophistication.”

Although he spent his life making beautiful jewels for the rich and powerful, Yard’s life didn’t begin in glamour. His father died of tuberculosis when he was 12 years old. Yard earned money as a paperboy. Fate intervened: William Elder Marcus, one of the owners of the jewelry store Marcus & Co., was one of his customers. In 1898, at age 13, Yard quit school and began working full time at Marcus & Co. as a messenger. He attended jewelry-making classes in the evening and received hands-on training in the day in the store’s different departments. In his late teens, he began stringing pearls. Eventually, he became an expert in natural pearls. At 21, he was promoted to the showroom as a salesman and later became general manager of Marcus & Co. Yard opened his own jewelry company at the age of 37 in 1922.

Yard’s clients, many of whom he first met at Marcus & Co., were the cream of American society, including John D. Rockefeller and the Woolworth, DuPont, Harriman, and Vanderbilt families.