Gold | Eileen Moylan

What to do with unworn gold jewellery?

05.28.2012 by Eileen Moylan //

This week I’m melting down a customers gold to transform it into a new piece of jewellery. Many people disregard this option as they think they don’t have enough gold jewellery to recycle. But how many broken chains and odd earrings do you have that will never be worn again? This is a perfect way to de-clutter your jewellery box and also give yourself a guilt free gift of jewellery!

Here are some photos of the melting and re modelling process. I begin my weighing the customers gold, making sure I have enough to make the requested design. I’m turning this gold into charms for a bracelet.

For these charms I need a length of D shaped wire. This is done by rolling the gold through my trusty rolling mill to form a length of wire. It’s a slow process with the gold needing to be annealed ( heated to soften) after every few rolls.

Once the gold is at the correct thickness I cut it into the required lengths and start rounding it up. This also has to be done in stages and annealed as the gold wire is very thick for the size of the charm.

I will post pictures of the finished charms next week…

Gold & Silver Stacking Rings Part 2

12.21.2011 by Eileen Moylan //

This is part two of a series on making stacking rings, to read part 1 click here.

Having made the silver rings I then needed to cut out the gold details and solder them on the rings.

Filing flat are on rings for gold detail

I begin by filing an area on the rings so the gold triangles will be able to sit flat on the bands. Then I cut the mark out the different size triangles on my gold sheet.

Marking out Triangles (and drinking tea!)

Because the gold details are so small they need to be held in a ring clamp when filing and cutting them out.

Once I have all the gold pieces cut out I place them on the rings to make sure everything sits nicely together and they will work in a variety of positions. I stick these on with blu tack so I can move them around easily.

When I’m happy with the size, shape and direction of each of the gold triangles I can start setting up for soldering.

It’s not a great photo as the sun started streaming in the workshop window. Once I’ve finished all the soldering I’ll post pictures of the finished rings.

Safe Secrets: The Story of the Coggalbeg Hoard

10.24.2011 by Eileen Moylan //

Many of you may have read the story of a gold Early Bronze Age collar which was found in a skip after the robbery of a Co. Roscomon pharmacy.

Apparently when Sheehans pharmacy in Strokestown Co. Roscommon was robbed the burglars turned out the contents of the safe into a skip after taking the money and valuables of interest to them. What they didn’t realise was that buried in the papers was a priceless gold torc.

Following the robbery the Sheehan family told gardaí that the safe contained three items of gold jewellery. The detectives established that the papers from the safe had been dumped in a skip nearby. Because of the flat, thin nature of these gold pieces (weighing only 78 grams in total) they went unnoticed by the robbers. After trawling through the skip the gardaí found the crescent shaped collar and two small gold discs.

It transpires that these items had been kept in the Sheehan’s safe since 1947. The hoard was originally found by Hubert Lannon when he was cutting turf in his bog at Coggalbeg, Co. Roscommon. It was discovered when investigating the provenance of the hoard that Mr Lannon had died at age 93 just three weeks before the robbery in March 2009. His family were able to confirm that he had found the gold in his bog and had given it to Mr Sheehan the Strokestown chemist.

Once the gold had been recovered it was sent to the National Museum of Ireland to be cataloged and dated. This hoard is extremely important as it contains the first pair of discs to be found since the nineteenth century. The find is also important as it represents the first recorded association of a lunula and gold discs. This is very significant for archaeologists as they study the period in which collars and discs would be worn.

Last week the Coggalbeg hoard went on display in the Museum of Country Life in Turlough Park, Castlebar. This amazing find will remain there for all to see until June 2012.

What a strange set of circumstances resulted in this hoard finding its way into public view. How many other treasures are buried in safes and under beds around the country?!

The origin of the engagement ring

02.18.2011 by Eileen Moylan //

For todays post, I decided to research the origin of engagement rings.

I had this romantic notion that when I went researching this subject I would find that the first engagement ring was dreamt up by a man who was so madly in love he searched the world for the perfect gift for his future bride. Unfortunately the origins of our beautiful diamond rings aren’t nearly as glamorous.

The tradition was started in ancient Roman culture where a man would give a iron band to his future bride as a public mark that a contract had been made between the two families. How romantic! Iron was the chosen metal as it signified an unbreakable contract, apparently nothing short of death would get you out of an engagement. The ring was also seen as a sign that the woman would pass from the ownership of her father to her husband. This is apparently why men didn’t wear any form of an engagement ring.

Thankfully they ditched the iron in the third century and began to use silver and gold bands. This again symbolized the the contract made but also the grooms faith in his fiancee that she could be trusted with his wealth. Still no sign of the word “love”!

This simple band developed over time to encorporate various symbols of unity such as knots and clasped hands. Over time the engagement ring developed in different directions. The most common incorporating the symbol of joined hands. This ring became known as a ‘concordia’ or fede ring. Fede is an Italian phrase meaning ‘hands (joined) in faith’or a pledge of love. Finally the engagement ring symbolized something more than a legally binding contract! Other rings such as the Gimmel ring (two bands joined together), the Posy ring (decorated with engravings of poetry), and the Puzzle ring.

They also began wearing engagement rings on the third finger of their left hand. This tradition was taken from the Egyptian belief that from that finger ran the “nerve of love” straight to he heart. They also began engraving messages of love on the inside and outside of the ring. The fede ring above is engraved in Latin on the inside ‘ I am a token of love, do not throw me away’.

It is interesting that although there was lots of jewellery set with gemstones and diamonds. The engagement ring didn’t get any diamonds until the 15th century. The first well documented use of diamonds in an engagement ring was by Archduke Maximilian of Austria in 1477. Finally we get something sparkly!

Marriage also began to be consecrated by the church from the 16th century. Amongst peasants this ceremony involved strange traditions where the future husband tried to put the ring on the finger of his bride while she struggled in an attempt to make the ring fall to the ground. I have no idea what this symbolized but I doubt it will make a come back.

That’s as far as my research has taken me for the moment but I’ll continue looking at the development of the engagement ring in a later post.

All photos taken from Sylvie Lambert’s book ‘The Ring‘. It’s a brilliant book that looks at the ring throughout history.