My Thoughts | Eileen Moylan

Silver bullion recovered off the Irish Coast

07.19.2012 by Eileen Moylan //

This week it was reported that a quantity of silver bullion was recovered off the Irish coast south west of Galway. When I first saw this story I presumed it was a small quantity that had been discovered by accident but it turns out the find consisted of 1.4 million troy ounces of silver!! Making it the heaviest and deepest ever recovery of precious metals from a shipwreck.

I did a few calculations to give you a sense of how much silver that is. 1 troy ounce is equivalent to 31.1 grams, which puts the total weight of silver found at 43,540 kgs, that’s about the weight of ten elephants!

The silver has remained off the Irish coast since 1941 when the merchant ship on which it was being transported sank. The SS Gairsoppa was torpedoed by a German U-boat during the Second World War while it was being used by the British government under their War Risk Insurance programme. An insurance payment of £325,000 (it’s value in 1941) was paid out to the owners of the bullion by the government, therefore allowing the state to claim ownership. With silver prices at their highest this was a great time to cash in on their investment! It is thought that this find only represents half of the silver and there is another ship 100 miles from the SS Gairsoppa wreck which contains another sizable quantity of silver.

Now like me you might ask how did that much silver lay on the sea bed for 70 odd years without someone going to the effort of recovering it? It turns out retrieving large amounts of silver from a buried ship wreck isn’t the easiest of tasks! The deep ocean explorations company Odyssey Marine Explorations based in Florida who carried out the work need special equipment to cut into the wreck and retrieve the silver. Even if I can’t get my hands on some that forgotten silver it’s nice to know it’s hidden off our coast just waiting to be found.

04.27.2012 by Eileen Moylan //

I finally got around to joining Pinterest this week. Pinterest is an image sharing website that allows you to create virtual pinboards to organize and share all the beautiful images you find online.

Having only been part of the Pinterest community for few days now, so far I’m impressed. It’s perfect for grabbing an image and posting it quickly. Often I’ll be looking at work of an artists or designer and will want to remember them for a later blog post or something to add to my sketch book. If I’m in a rush this won’t happen I’ll scribble the name down promising I’ll come back and investigate the work.

I can instantly see how Pinterest will solve this problem, now I can just pin the image really quickly so I can share it with others and also revisit it myself. Often my ideas for a new design will be inspired by something that I spotted some time ago. And now rather than it being a distant memory written on the back of a sketchbook it will be perfectly organized on my Pinterest boards. For someone working in art or design this is also a perfect way of sharing current projects and making techniques. I’ve already found some great boards that feature handy tips on silversmithing and jewellery making.

As yet I’m only following a few people and haven’t pinned enough to attract any followers. But I’m planning to get stuck in to Pinterest over the weekend so if you are on Pinterest too come find me under Eileen Moylan.

Happy Pinning!

Is your costume jewellery safe?

03.27.2012 by Eileen Moylan //

A really interesting article was brought to my attention this week about the presence of dangerous chemicals in some high street costume jewellery. American scientists at the Ecology Centre have recently tested ninety nine items from well known shops such as Claire’s, Forever 21 and H & M and other U.S retailers.

Lead, cadmium, chromium, mercury and arsenic among other highly toxic chemicals, were detected in over half the pieces tested. I wasn’t sure of the implications to the wearer exposed to these nasty sounding chemicals so I went in search of more information. What I discovered was really scary. These chemicals have been linked to health issues such as liver toxicity, cancer, birth defects and acute allergies.

Of the pieces tested 25% had lead levels which exceed the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s limit of lead allowed in the production of children’s products. In fact many of the items that were labelled lead free were in fact made entirely of lead!

As far as I am aware in Europe we have stricter laws in relation to the use of chemicals in children’s products. I plan to do more research into this so will let ye know what I find out.

For the time being I think I’ll be sticking to silver!

Holycross Abbey Robbery

10.14.2011 by Eileen Moylan //

I’m sure everyone in Ireland has heard about the robbery in Holycross Abbey Thurles, Co Tipperary this week. I couldn’t believe it when I read the details of the robbery. They broke into the abbey at 5pm on Tuesday evening with a hammer, screw driver and angle grinder.I thought initially they cut one of the crosses from its stand with the angle ginder but from what I have read it appears that they used the angle grinder to cut open the steel door of the display cabinet protecting the cross.

The two crosses were only 30cm in height so very easy to take. I thought the crosses were stolen for the metals scrap value but having looked into the size and the metals of each cross I’m not sure if that’s the case. One of the crosses was solid silver which although valuable as scrap would perhaps be more valuable intact, considering it was a 14th century reliquary. The other cross is bronze and gold, but it sounds like the bulk of the cross was executed in bronze and then it was finished or plated with gold. Either way it doesn’t sound like a huge quantity of gold and not worth the risk . This is only me speculating… I’m not familiar with the mark up or overheads for robbery! It’s an awful loss to the church who had housed the pieces since the 12th century. As a maker I hate to think craftsmanship like this would be destroyed.

So much silver and gold gets scraped these days due to high prices being paid for scrap metal. I completely understand people cashing in their old jewelry for cash but it’s horrible to see pieces like this being scrapped. If you find yourself with some old silver or gold be sure to get it valued first. You’d never know it might be worth more sold intact than for scrap and at least this way the piece survives for someone to admire.

Resurrection Angel St FinBarre's Cathedral

Hopefully there will be a happy ending to this story and the two crosses will be returned to the abbey intact. A similar thing happened in Cork city when the gold horns were removed from the gold leaf Resurrection Angel statue that sits on the roof of St. Finbarres Cathedral. This is a beautiful cathedral which I know well since I attended the art college across the road from it. The story goes that the angel will sound the horns out over the city on judgement day! Anyway these were cut from the angel but following an appeal were returned to the cathedral where they were restored and returned to their rightful place.

Hopefully the crosses will find their way back to Thurles…

Holidays

09.02.2011 by Eileen Moylan //

Today I’m getting all my orders in the post and giving the workshop a good cleaning because I’m going on my holidays this weekend!

We’ll be gone for a week so I won’t be posting on this website until the 13th September.

If there is some area of silver you would like me to write about when I get back be sure to let me know…

Jewelry, Jewellery.. let’s call the whole thing off!

03.28.2011 by Eileen Moylan //

Every time I write the word ‘jewellery’ in this blog a nasty red line appears under it telling me I’m spelling it incorrectly. I’m sure most people are thinking, a minor annoyance but look at my little word bubble thingy.

The word jewellery comes up a lot in my blog posts. (You can make your own word bubble on Wordle.net. It takes your website and compiles this image from all the words you use, the size of the word is determined by how frequently it is used.)

While I was writing this mornings post I had the same spell check problem with jewellery. So I’ve shelved that post for the moment and I’m going to find out who spells jewellery, jewelry and why?!

It turns out that it’s the American spelling that’s playing havoc with my spell check. Which is a bit annoying considering they are the only English speaking country that spell it this way, Canadians are happy to leave well enough alone!

Fear not all my American readers, I don’t blame your country. The blame lies with one man, Mr Noah Webster. Webster was an American writer who took it upon himself to reform the American school system. His aim was to

rescue our native tongue

as he believed the English language has been corrupted by the British aristocracy. A by product of this was the movement he led demanding simplification of word spelling. And of course my much used word jewellery fell victim to this movement.

His goal was to provide a uniquely American approach to teaching children. As a former teacher he had seen how children would be taught using English textbooks. He believed that Americans should learn from American books and so began writing ‘A Grammatical Institute of the English Language’ This consisted of a speller (1783), a grammar (1784) and a reader (1785). These books went on to be used in American schools and his ‘blue-back speller’ books taught five generations of children how to spell (incorrectly!) And it wasn’t just jewellery he decided to change. He preferred s to c in words like defense. He changed ‘re’ at the end of words to ‘er’ like in centre. He dropped ‘l’s and ‘u’s’ all over the place. He also tried to change ‘tongue’ to ‘tung’ but it never caught on.

Before I started ranting about how he can’t just go meddling with language I decided to see where the English got the word to find out who’s version is closest to the truth. The word jewellery is derived from the word jewel, no surprises there but the word jewel is actually taken from the French word ‘jouel’ around the 13th century. So there’s the first example of the spelling being changed. When I delved a little further I found that the word jouel is taken from the Latin word ‘jocale’. The nice thing about this word is that it means play thing.

There you have it, the history of the word jewellery. So every time your computer tells you to spell ‘centre’ as ‘center’ or ‘colour’ as ‘color’ you can blame my good friend Mr Webster. The other things you can blame Mr Webster for are the Webster dictionary and spelling bees. Now that I know the origin of the word and how’s it’s changed over history I’m happy to ignore my spell check safe in the knowledge that I’m doing my bit to preserve the language!

How to Read a Hallmark

02.23.2011 by Eileen Moylan //

Before Christmas I wrote a post on the process of hallmarking and how and why you would send your work for hallmarking. To read this post click here.

I borrowed a silver spoon that my dad bought recently so I could write a post on how you go about reading a hallmark. You can see from the photo above this spoon has a clearly stamped hallmark. Although the makers mark is more faint as harder to read.

The first thing to do when reading a hallmark is to find out at which assay office it was hallmarked. I know from looking at this that it was hallmarked in Dublin because of the mark with the harp and crown. This mark is known as the mark of origin and is different for every assay office. While Dublin has the symbol of the harp and crown, Birmingham uses an anchor symbol and Edinburgh a castle. The Irish assay office no longer uses this, now we’re gone all European and just use the Hibernia mark and a metal fineness mark.

The second mark on this spoon is the mark of Hibernia. This mark was introduced by the Dublin assay office in 1731 so at least I know from this that the spoon was made after that year. This mark is still stamped on all silver hallmarked in Ireland.

There can also be a fourth mark which is the date letter. This letter changes every year and has a different font and shape every cycle. For example the shape of the date letter can change from a shield (1871-1895) to a rectangle (1896-1915) The cycle can run from twenty four to twenty six years, from A to Z but sometimes they leave out letters. I have no idea why, but let me know if you do!

This spoon doesn’t have a date letter so I will have to use the other marks to give me a rough idea as to when it was hallmarked. One of the ways to do this is through the makers mark. If I can find out who ‘B.T’ is and when he/she was registered with the Dublin assay office I can find out in what period the spoon was made.

I found a great website that lists some makers registered to the Dublin assay office. Click here to see it. From this website I found out the ‘B.T.’ that made my spoon was Benjamin Tait. They list the year 1790 beside his name but it doesn’t give the date range when he was registered. So off I went on a google ing frenzy to find out all I could about Benjamin Tait. Unfortunately I couldn’t find out much about Mr Tait so back I went to my book of hallmarks to see the Dublin marks for that period.

It turns out that the 1790 harp and hibernia marks were in ovals unlike in my spoon where they are rectangular. They remained rectangular from 1793 to 1809 so I can deduce from this that my spoon was hallmarked during this period.

So that’s my guide to reading a hallmark. From those three little stamps I found out that the spoon was made by Benjamin Tait between 1793 and 1809 and was hallmarked in Dublin Castle.

Silver Spoons

11.19.2010 by Eileen Moylan //

I went looking up the phrase ‘born with a silver spoon in his mouth’ partly I’m exploring all things silver, but also because we welcomed a new nephew last week (not that he was born with a Silver spoon!)

It is defined as “opportunities that you did not earn but that you have from the influence of your family”

Etymology: from the idea that silver spoons were given at the birth of wealthy children

Like most children of the 80’s I associate silver spoons with Ricky Schroder living it up in the TV sitcom ‘Silver Spoons’. So even from a young age I knew a silver spoon had something to do with inherited wealth because they had a huge toy train set running through their house!

: Ricky Schroder, Silver Spoons

I was thinking, if the phrase is to denote being born into wealth why not say born with a gold spoon as it is of higher value.

Anyway it turns out that it is more the properties of silver than its value that have lead to the saying. Beyond their value and beauty silver cutlery self-sanitizes as silver is a natural anti-biotic. I knew it had been used for dressings for wounds and burns to prevent against infection but it seems it has other properties which have been utilized for centuries.

Silver was used by royal and wealthy families to detect poison. In the Korean Joseon Dynasty this was used to great effect to protect the heir to the throne. During this Dynasty the king would have a number of wives all vying for their sons to inherit the throne. Usually the first born would inherit everything so the queens would attempt to poison his food so their sons might succeed him. The silver spoon would tarnish when it came into contact with sulphur which is present in arsenic. Therefore protecting the king from his ambitious family!

The Academy of Silversmithery

11.17.2010 by Eileen Moylan //

One of the great silversmith websites I keep coming back to is the Contemporary British Silversmiths which is setup by the association of the same name. Membership is on a selection basis so the standard of work on display is very high.

Most of the work is functional and decorative tableware but they also have a sculptural section that’s worth a look. There is such a great selection of work, it shows how successful the colleges in Britain are at turning out highly skilled silversmith graduates. Since the apprenticeship route is all but gone in Ireland it would be great to see art colleges here establishing silversmithing departments. There are some art colleges like NCAD that have craft design degree courses. Also, the Crafts Council have a jewellery course in Kilkenny which has been great for jewellery design in Ireland. As far as I know the closest place to study as a silversmith is Belfast. Please tell me if I’ve overlooked somewhere.

If it were up to me I’d love to set up a silversmithing department where students would acquire skills from early silversmithing, modern advances in metalwork and everything in between. There are so many processes that you don’t get the opportunity to explore when you’re in a commercial work environment. It would be great to have at least a little knowledge of these before you head out into the world.

When a student leaves college they usually can’t afford machinery like spinning lathes and micro welders. Wouldn’t it be great to equip them with these skills while they are still in college where they can practice for free?

There should also be a history of silversmithing and design module. I think your work is strengthened by your ability to write about it, drawing references from other artists.When you do this, I think you learn more about your inspiration and where this will take your work in the future.

Most art colleges now provide a business module whereby students learn about setting up their own business or how to submit proposals for commissions. The best students in college don’t always go on to become the most successful business people.

Silversmiths who can make amazing pieces in silver often have difficulty relaying these ideas in their sketches. It would be really beneficial for people who do not have a natural aptitude for drawing to learn simple draftsman skills.

Finally.. problem solving! I know most professions spend days banging their heads on brick walls. Sometimes, working in silver, you spend ages picking apart the design for potential pitfalls, and still, you end up cutting out your silver only to discover you never allowed for something. While this mostly happens on a new piece you haven’t made before, I think you could equip students with the skills to preempt these pitfalls.

Anyway just a few suggestions for my Eileen Moylan Academy of Silversmithery!

Introductions

10.20.2010 by Eileen Moylan //

As a silversmith/jeweller starting out on my own I hope this blog will give you a chance to follow my progress. Most of the silversmithing blogs I’ve come across either discuss antique silver or else give advice on how to perfect different techniques. What I hope to do is blog about the artistic process from the initial inspiration right through to the execution of the finished piece. Taking you through the various sketches and models, then looking at some of the different forming processes I use.

The aim of my work is to execute my sculptural designs using techniques which have remained unchanged since early silversmithing. Many of these processes are quite labour intensive but the end result is a completely handmade piece with a high quality finish. As I have never studied silversmithing in college I am sure my approach will be ‘interesting’ to some readers. That approach consisting of a combination of my sculptural education and my 10 years experience of silversmithing. I hope you find it interesting please leave me a comment, even if it’s only to say hello.