I’ve long had a thing for granulation in silver jewellery, and I love orbs, balls, spheres, domes, bobbles and bubbles in all their forms. So it’s no surprise that I have a few bobbly rings in my Etsy shop right now:
NE From Danish sterling silver bypass bobble ring. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
Modernist Finnish sterling silver bobble bypass ring. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
Swedish modernist ring, imported to London in 1970. This one has a little silver ball inside that tinkles around. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
1970 brutalist Finnish 930 silver ring by Valon Kulta & Hopea of Turku, Finland. Love the granulation on this! For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD.)
Bengt Hallberg (Sweden) sterling silver bypass ring. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details.
Modernist sterling silver ring in a Georg Jensen style. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
1960s sterling silver jester ring by Anna Greta Eker. Eker was Finnish but worked in Norway, and is regarded as one of the greats of Scandinavian/Nordic silver design.
NE From sterling silver ring. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery. Click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
1950s sterling silver ring by John Lauritzen of Copenhagen. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photos for details.
Here’s an earlier post with a few more granulated pieces I’ve since sold, plus an interesting video showing how the bobbles are made.
UPDATE May 2017: For Scandinavian silver pieces currently in my Etsy shop, please click here.
I seem to be sourcing more and more pieces of 20th century Scandinavian silver jewellery for my shop. I started off with the idea of stocking early 20th century pieces – English Arts and Crafts, Germanic Jugendstil and Nordic Skønvirke jewellery, but gradually my eye was drawn towards the sleek, minimalist lines of mid century Scandinavian modernist jewellery as well.
A few of the pieces of Scandinavian jewellery for sale in my Etsy shop. Click on photo to see my current selection of Scandinavian jewellery and silver objects.
At the moment I have 40 pieces of Scandinavian silver for sale in my Etsy shop, and more to come that I haven’t got round to listing yet!
December 2016 update: I always seem to have Viking ship jewellery in my shop. Click here to see the current selection.
More by accident than design—and a very happy accident at that—I have three Viking ship brooches in my Etsy shop at the moment. I think they show longships, as opposed to the other kinds of Viking sea-going vessels.
Fabulous David-Andersen Viking ship brooch, dated to between 1924 and 1939. For sale in my Etsy shop: click photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
The jewel in the crown is an exquisite silver and enamel brooch by the renowned Norwegian firm of David-Andersen. The craftsmanship in this piece is stunning, and shows why David-Andersen enamelwork is so highly thought of.
The brooch can be dated quite closely to between 1924 and 1939, as the combination of 925 (sterling) silver and a particular form of the maker’s mark for the company was only used in this period. This brooch design is rarely seen and so is highly collectable.
The second Viking ship brooch dates from 1946 and was made by the Birmingham firm of Shipton and Co. It is solid sterling silver and was hallmarked in Chester (I wonder why a Birmingham firm didn’t send their silver to the Birmingham Assay Office to be hallmarked, rather than the Chester one?). It is very reminiscent of the popular Iona silver Celtic-style jewellery, made famous by designer Alexander Ritchie:
Sold sterling silver Viking ship brooch, made by Shipton & Co of Birmingham and hallmarked 1946 in Chester. For sale in my Etsy shop: click photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
The third brooch is also the youngest one: it was made by famous silversmith Malcolm Gray of the Ortak silversmithing firm on the Orkney Islands, and hallmarked at the Edinburgh Assay Office in 1981:
Sterling silver Viking longship brooch by Malcolm Gray of Ortak, hallmarked Edinburgh 1981. For sale in my Etsy shop: click photo for details. (NOW SOLD). September 2015 update: I have another of these for sale, also from 1981. Click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
This brooch is also solid sterling silver. The hallmarks and Gray’s maker’s mark are tiny, and barely visible among the textured dimples on the back of the brooch. The choice of subject matter is a fitting one, for the Vikings were an integral part of the history of these islands. The people of the Shetland Islands, north of the Orkneys, remember their Viking heritage every year with the Up Helly Aa festivals, and one day Chap and I are going to make it up there to see the festivities.
Update 22 June 2015: I have a new Viking ship brooch, by Aksel Holmsen of Norway, and dating from the 1930s:
Viking ship brooch in 830 silver, by Aksel Holmsen of Norway. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
Malcolm Gray Ortak sterling silver Viking ship brooch, 1975. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
September 2015 update. A couple more Viking ship brooches:
A Shetland Silvercraft brooch from 1968:
Sterling silver Viking ship brooch by Shetland Silvercraft, 1968. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
and a tiny mystery:
Tiny enamel and sterling silver Viking brooch. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photos for details. (NOW SOLD).
And finally, I just had to end with a clip from a great Saturday tea-time favourite film of mine when I was a kid: The Vikings (1958), starring Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh and Ernest Borgnine.
I’m not quite sure how or why this happened, but recently I seem to have been accumulating tiny pieces of jewellery in my Etsy shop. First up was a pretty Edwardian brooch with Persian turquoises, which is a squitchy 23 mm (9/10 inch) across its widest point.
Tiny Edwardian Persian turquoise and silver brooch. (NOW SOLD).
Just recently I bought an even tinier brooch: a pretty little sterling silver pin with an Art Nouveau design of leaves and a daisy-like flower. It measures 18 mm (7/10 inch) across by 12 mm (just under 1/2 inch) high. (Update: a kind lady on Etsy has since told me it’s a letter ‘C’ brooch – which of course it is! I wondered why it had that strange cut-off ‘top’ edge …. Turn it through 90 degrees and suddenly it makes sense. As Homer Simpson would say, ‘Doh!’. She also thinks it’s by Ortak, the jewellery makers up in the Orkney Isles in the far north of Scotland.)
Vintage tiny William Morris design sterling silver brooch forming a letter ‘C’, and made by Ortak in the 1970s. (NOW SOLD).
But the titchiest of all are the sweet little Hroar Prydz enamel and silver butterfly earrings I bought a few weeks ago. These little Norwegian beauties are so wee: each butterfly measures just 15 mm (6/10 inch) across at its widest part. Considering their size, the level of detailing in them is amazing.
Hroar Prydz enamel and silver butterfly earrings. (NOW SOLD).
I wonder if it’s something to do with having watched the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage the other day? I love that film!
