About Us
Top Fire Forge is the official website of Benjamin Mester, author of the epic fantasy series, The Banished Lands and owner of Buy Gems Wholesale.
In 2012, Mester created Buy Gems Wholesale after earning his credentials as a registered gemologist.
In 2018, after completing and publishing his epic fantasy series, The Banished Lands, he began shifting his focus toward fantasy themed jewelry, giving birth to Top Fire Forge, a perfect melding of his passions of fantasy and gemology.
What We Do in a Nutshell:
Buy Gems Wholesale has been in business since 2012, acquiring parcels of gemstones from estates, private collections, and closing jewelry stores. We buy thousands of carats at a time and because of the high volume, most of these gems are sold at auction through the website Proxibid — Click here to visit our auction house. 90% of the gems we acquire are sold at auction, with 1 cent opening bids and no reserve. If you’re a collector or jewelry maker looking for nice, usable gems for pennies on the dollar, I would highly recommend checking out one of our weekly auctions.
The final 10% of the gems are either listed at “buy it now” pricing at Buy Gems Wholesale, or are set aside for jewelry projects, sold here on Top Fire Forge. This 10% group is exceptional in cut, color and clarity. As a gemologist and owner of Buy Gems Wholesale, Ben has purchased and tested more than 10,000 gemstones. The gemstones that end up in our buy it now store or our jewelry pieces are truly the best of the best and at a fraction of the retail price.
Because we buy large volumes of gems and do our own in house testing, we have the ability to sell our gems and jewelry at below wholesale prices. Any of our pieces, both jewelry and loose gems, would sell for at least double our asking price in a retail jewelry establishment. If you’re looking for a finely and imaginatively crafted jewelry piece at a fraction of the retail price, then look no further.
Knife Crafting
Besides being an author and gemologist, Benjamin Mester is also a woodworker. In fact, the name Mester is derived from a Hungarian word that means master craftsman. Specializing in high end kitchen knives, he sources the highest quality Manzanita burl hardwood locally in Southern California, pairing it with the finest Japanese steel to bring you fantasy themed knives that are truly unique. You aren’t going to find knives like these anywhere else in the world. Each one is a hand crafted work of art.