1972 blue lace agate ring by Peter Guy Watson. For sale in my Etsy shop, Inglenookery: click on photo for details.
Thing:
Jupiter. Photographed in ultraviolet by the Hubble Space telescope, and rotated by me so it better matches the ring. Playing god, me? From the fabulous NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) series. Image credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble; Processing & licence: Judy Schmidt.
Every now and then in my Etsy shop I notice I seem to have a lot of jewellery in a particular style, or by a particular maker, or in a particular colour. And the other day I realised I seem to have accumulated a lot of blue jewellery.
Sadly none of the stones is a sapphire: blue glass, sodalite, turquoise and chalcedony, plus wonderful blue enamel on the Joid’art ring at bottom left. I haven’t listed everything yet, and two of the brooches are already spoken for, but just today I put the wonderful NE From sodalite ring in my shop. I don’t expect it’ll hang around for long …
NE From sodalite and sterling silver modernist ring. Could it be any bluer? Click on photo for details.
I have always had a fondness for amethysts: something about the beautiful violet colour is so appealing. So no surprise that I seem to have accumulated a few pieces of amethyst jewellery for my Etsy shop …
Amethyst and sterling silver pendant, hallmarked Sweden 1970. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
Amethyst and sterling silver ring, hallmarked in Birmingham in 1973. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
Kultaseppa Salovaara amethyst and sterling silver pendant. A great piece of Finnish design from the 1970s. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
Niels Erik From (NE From) amethyst and sterling silver ring. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details.
An amazing amethyst late Arts and Crafts ring, with seven magnificent amethysts. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details.
A stunning Niels Erik From amethyst and sterling silver necklace. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
Jugendstil amethyst and 935 silver brooch, with a ginkgo leaf design, possibly by Max Gradl of Pforzheim Germany. This is a great example of early 1900s German Art Nouveau jewellery. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details.
Caged amethyst pendant necklace, by Elis Kauppi of Kupittaan Kulta, Finland. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
Arts and Crafts style amethyst brooch, vintage lace pin. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details.
Kultaseppa Salovaara amethyst and sterling silver pendant; a lovely 1970s vintage Finnish piece of jewellery. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
Banded agate ring. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details.
Thing:
Saturn’s rings, photographed by the Cassini Orbiter. Photo by NASA, cropped and flipped 180 degrees by me to match my ring. Click on photo for details.
Vintage Danish 830 silver ring by Viggo Pedersen of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Thing:
Cream horn.
To be honest, the cream horn was the first thing that came to mind. If I was a bit more cultured, it would have been the Roman horn of plenty (cornucopia). But no. Cake. Always cake.
A few pieces of silver jewellery for sale in my Etsy shop display a technique known as granulation: basically it’s the application of small silver bobbles or blobs to a surface using solder, or joining (fusing) them together to form a bobbly surface. It gives a wonderfully organic, blobby effect, and I love it!
Vintage modernist sterling silver ring with granulated bobbles, made in London in 1973. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
Vintage 1970 modernist Swedish sterling dome ring, imported to London. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
Vintage modernist malachite and sterling silver pendant necklace, with granulated decoration. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
Vintage modernist sterling silver pendant with granulated design. Imported to London, 1973. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
It’s interesting that two of the dated pieces hail from 1973, and another from 1970. It seems like there was a whole lot of bobbling going on back then!
Vintage modernist Aksel Holmsen ring. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).
This Aksel Holmsen ring isn’t strictly speaking granulated, but its bobbly so I’m bunging it in here.
Here’s a video of a clever jeweller demonstrating his (rather unorthodox) method of making granulation bobbles. As an added bonus, it also includes a cat, yay.
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.
