As a young man, Prentice was inexplicably drawn to the jewellery trade. His father was a detective and his grandfather was in the British Army. There was seemingly no precedent for Prentice's fascination with gems and jewellery. Several years later, a visit to London by his uncle cleared up the mystery of why jewellery? While doing some genealogical research, his uncle turned up the fact that Prentice's great, great grandfather was a jeweller in London in the mid 1800's. It was in his blood!

Starting with a workshop in his basement in Edmonton, Alberta in 1972, he experimented and participated in virtually every aspect of the jewellery and gem trade. Initially, this involved designing and hand-crafting enamel and then silver jewellery.
In the mid '70's, he had two shops in Vancouver - one in Gastown called the 'Eight of Pentacles' and the other on 4th Avenue called 'On the Wind'. From there he and his wife Angela Homer formed Rare Earth Gems and imported fine gemstones for Canada's top jewellers. In the early 80's, Rare Earth Jewellery was formed to design and manufacture fine gem set 14kt and 18 kt jewellery. A lot of that jewellery used inlaid gemstones such as lapis lazuli and black jade. That's when lapidary became a passion for Prentice. It all ended in 1993 when Prentice and Angela left the jewellery trade to pursue other careers.

Recently, Prentice rekindled his passion for gems by building a workshop and dipping into the stash of fabulous rough he had assembled over his 20 year sojourn into the jewellery trade.
The results can be seen on the web pages of Rare and Precious.com.