Category Archives: rings

Pink perfection – Lola Rose bracelet, Buch and Deichmann bangles, & N.E. From silver ring

I bought the Lola Rose bracelet first, several years ago. It was part of a bundle of Lola Rose stuff that I found in a local charity shop. Since then I’ve sold most of the other items on but I kept this rose quartz heart bracelet, because I love rose quartz. Then a few months back I came across two pink Buch and Deichmann bangles. B+D is a Danish company that now makes eyewear, but back in the ’70s and ’80s they sold a range of attractive jewellery and hair accessories. Designed by Ketty Dalsgaard, these were made of nylon in a range of gorgeous colours, and were lightweight and tactile. The colour of the bangles is the perfect match for the bracelet, and they all sit happily on the wrist without clanking or scratching each other.

To complete the pink ensemble shown in the pic, the silver and rose quartz ring is by another Danish designer, Niels Erik From. I bought this in another local charity shop for £1. Yes, £1. You don’t get bargains like that very often.

Mawi ring. With charm. Very large, dangly charm.

This is something I bought a while ago for £10 in a charity shop, thinking I would sell it on eBay and make a fortune. Well, a decent profit anyway. Sadly, the good people of eBay weren’t interested so I was stuck with it. This is the item in question:

As you can see, it’s a rather lovely cutwork silver ring, featuring a bird sitting on what looks like a vine laden with luscious, ripe grapes. Dangling from the bottom is a charm with wood and semi-precious beads, and a silver token. There is also a metal tag with “Mawi” stamped on it. I happen to know that Mawi is a high end costume jewellery brand that’s been sold in places like Liberty (I don’t know if they still are though – haven’t visited Liberty in ages). But this marriage of ring and charm is incongruous somehow, not to mention rather impractical. What’s more, I couldn’t find another version of this combo when I did a Google search on Mawi stuff, which generally veers more towards the statement-necklace-with-studs end of the spectrum.

What did I end up doing? Well, I took the charm off, threaded it onto a plain narrow silver band ring and put it on my handbag. I wear the ring often, because it’s just my style.

Czech silver ring

I’ve had this ring in my personal collection for about ten years, and have always thought that it dated from the 1920s. (It has an Art Deco kind of feel to it, well I think so anyway!) I used to wear the ring a lot, but sadly the advancing years have made my fingers swell, to the point where it no longer fits. I never really looked at the hallmarks closely until today – I remember that one of them was a 900 for 900 parts per thousand of silver, showing that it was almost certainly made in continental Europe. Getting the magnifier out, I found that the other mark was a rabbit’s head and the number 3. A quick search led to this forum discussion:

https://www.smpub.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000136.html

It would appear that my ring is Czech in origin. And it isn’t Art Deco at all but probably dates from the 1960s, when the rabbit hallmark was reintroduced in Czechoslovakia after a 34 year hiatus. So if you see a rabbit hallmark on a piece of silver, then look to Central Europe.

PS: Below is my attempt at taking a close-up picture:

I went to the auction and got …

This huge lot of rings and other jewellery items. Some really nice pieces in there, including a deliciously chunky sterling silver moonstone ring, a Native American silver and turquoise ring, and a John Hart Iona silver Celtic brooch.

If you fancy a splurge, I’m offering 25% off to all readers of this blog – just enter coupon code BLOG25 at the checkout. Minimum purchase is £5, and the closing date is Sunday May 13th.

Here is a link to the coupon code – click on it, and the 25% discount will automatically be applied at the checkout.

Everything’s coming up yellow Art Deco



Although I don’t actively collect buttons and buckles any more, I still buy them when I come across examples that I really like (assuming that the price is right, of course). A while back, I found half a glass belt buckle. It was this fantastic shade of zingy lemon yellow, with contrasting silver-coated bars. What on earth do you do with half a Deco belt buckle though? Answer: find a suitable chain, and turn it into a necklace. This beauty is on sale in my shop:

yellowdecoglasspendant

It actually makes a rather nice pairing with a ring of a similar vintage:

yellowglassring

The band and setting are made from brass and the ring would have been the cheapest of the cheap when bought new. But it still looks great.

A little bit of the American South West, found on eBay UK


The Bay of Evil isn’t what it used to be for sellers, but sometimes you can have a magic moment as a buyer. While browsing the jewellery section recently, I saw this ring. The photo was blurry and the description just said “silver ring” (or something equally short and uninformative), but it just had that “look” – the first thing I thought was, “I bet that’s Navajo silver.” Turns out it wasn’t Navajo silver, but it was something almost as good. Firstly, the 925 mark on the inside proclaimed that it was indeed silver*. Then there was a letter R, and a copyright symbol. If you’ve never come across this mark before, it’s a range called Relios, by American jewellery designer Carolyn Pollack. The company, which has featured on QVC’s UK website (though not any more I’m sorry to say), is based in New Mexico and specialises in “South Western” style jewellery. So my “Navajo” guess wasn’t too far out.

relioswrapring

relioswrapring2

*Sadly, not all jewellery marked with “925” is actually silver. There are some fakes out there so if you want to be totally sure you’re getting the real thing, stick to items with either a full hallmark or a reliable trademark, like my ring. But if you’re me, sometimes you’ll have a punt anyway – it can pay dividends and if you put a limit on your spending, you can end up with a real bargain.