PARIS: The displays at Mellerio jewellers in Paris teem with diamonds and sapphires. But to football fans they pale in comparison with the golden orb on a bed of pyrite crafted by the house for the FIFA Ballon d’Or.

Dubbed the Oscars of the football world, the FIFA Ballon d’Or was born in 2010 of the merger of two prizes: the Ballon d’Or, awarded since 1956 by French sports journalists and FIFA’s World Player trophy, picked since 1991 by coaches and national team captains.

The award kept the name and distinctive trophy of the Ballon d’Or, which has stayed more or less the same for half a century: a brass football dipped in gold, resting on a rocky base of pyrite.

The coveted prize, to be handed out on January 7, is crafted by one of the world’s oldest jewellers, the family-owned firm Mellerio dits Meller, which has been crafting gems and ornaments for the kings and queens of Europe since 1613.

“It’s something we’re happy be a part of,” Francois Mellerio told Agence France-Presse of the Ballon d’Or. He and his brother Olivier are the 14th generation to run the firm, which also crafts the Musketeers’ Trophy for the men’s singles in the French tennis open.

With 400 years in business the jeweller has made everything from tiaras—like one model from 1910, made of pearls, diamond and platinum—to ciborium, a cup used as part of the Roman Catholic liturgy.

The basement of its store on Paris’ Rue de la Paix, where the Italian family was the first jeweller to settle in 1815, teems with antique order books, dating back to 1780 and including commissions by the Empresses Josephine and Eugenie.

Mellerio today employs 12 artisans in Paris, who work with a mix of traditional and modern methods—lasers alongside hand chisels. Six craftsmen worked on this year’s Ballon d’Or.