David Webb (1925-1975) was a North Carolinian who apprenticed from a young age in his uncle’s jewelry shop in Ashville. At sixteen he left for New York City to start his career as a jewelry designer. In 1946, after five years of working with a number of New York jewelers, he formed a partnership with Nina Silberstein, then an accountant, to open his own business. He was 21 years old. At that time, their pieces were being sold through department stores. In 1963 they opened a retail shop on East 57th Street. Shortly thereafter, President and Mrs. Kennedy commissioned a series of distinctly American objects to be given as gifts to heads of state. 

In 2010 Webb was on the edge of bankruptcy when a group of estate dealers purchased the business and provided a much needed cash infusion.  They saved the David Webb business, moved the business to a smaller space and continue to produce David Webb's designs from the many sketches in the archive. In 2010 the company hired Ruth Peltason to organize the vast archives and to write the definitive book on Webb.  In 2013 they Assouline Press released  'David Webb: The Quintessential American Jeweler'.