Paris, France — As Paris and football fans the world over are gearing up for the Ballon d’Or awards ceremony tonight, a high house of jewelry is a world class champion as well. The Ballon d’Or (The Ball of Gold) award is regarded as the most prestigious  and valuable individual award in professional football or soccer as it is called in the United States. And the beautiful ball of gold is fashioned in Paris by the hand of man in one of the world’s oldest, and possibly the oldest house, of high jewelry, Mellerio which was founded in France in 1613 aqnd can now count 15 generations of the same family at its helm. Since the inception of the award back in 1956, the family-owned house of Mellerio, jewellers to the Court of Versailles, has been discreetly fashioning the award trophy in their workshops at 9, rue de la Paix, in the heart of one of the world’s most high jewelry neighborhoods.  And since 2018 they have been fashioning two, since the award is now given to a woman player as well as a man.

The Mellerios, who originally were goldsmiths from Italy,  continue the art of Haute Orfèvrerie, objects made in precious materials like the ceremonial swords for members of the French Academy and the trophy for Roland Garros, the French Open. And the Ballon d’Or trophy has been fashioned in the same way since 1956. It requires 100 hours of workmanship by highly skilled craftsmen and work begins on the object six months before it is delivered.  After welding two half spheres in brass, the goldsmith creates an opening which is necessary to set the ball on a block of pyrite. It is then entrusted to the hands of the chiseler who fills it with a material known as « cement » so as to be able to emboss the metal, using a previously made drawing,  with the seams of a real soccer football ball. This is an incredibly precise step as it requires 15 hours of work to reproduce the 32 panels that make up a football. 

Next up is the polisher who recuperates it before passing it to the engraver who will inscribe, by hand, the logo of France Football (the French sports magazine that founded the Ballon d’Or award) and the year of the award ceremony.  Then it is plunged into a bath of gold and passed to the hands of the goldsmith who will undertake the final  assembly on a pyrite base. The pyrite has been carefully sourced by the house’s precious gemstone expert and it is then worked on by a glypticien  (a rare craftsman who works on fine and hard stones) who has carefully planed it so that it fits snugly into the slab of gilded brass that the trophy sits upon. 

The Ballon d’Or, literally the Golden Ball, is an annual football award presented by the French magazine France Football since 1956 to honor the player deemed to have performed the best over the previous season. France Football,  a French monthly magazine containing football news from all over the world, is distributed by the sports newspaper l’Equipe. Mellerio in Paris: 9, rue de La Paix, 75002 Paris, France. Tel: +33 (0)1 42 61 57 53. https://www.mellerio.fr/