Sepia Saturday - Jewels

This week's SEPIA SATURDAY suggestion is about JEWELS

Before I say anything else, I must comment that the example at the left makes me think of Alexander Calder. I can't imagine why.

Now, down to business.

The term "JEWEL" turned up a several items in LOST GALLERY. There were necklaces, rings, medals, tiaras and ear-bobs.

I decided these three were the best to represent the theme for this week.

While researching for this page, I discovered that there are whole web pages, whole businesses, that answer to a search for JEWLERY. JewLEry!

Look it up! Try MACY'S

This photo is encrusted with tiny jewels, probably glass, carefully glued to the print, one by one following the design of dress. The red ones are apparent but the clear/white ones scanned as dark spots. I puzzled over how to make the sparkles more apparent and finally just gave up.

Note the waist. And it's probably not a photo trick either.

I have never been too sure what the message in the upper left corner is.

The stamp does indeed say "Republica Argentina." I found this one on a trip to Wichita Falls, TX, back in September 2009.

Someone has to say it. Considering all the binding, stretching, starving and bleaching, it's a wonder there are any women left at all.

And all for men who seldom deserve the effort.

Okay. The soapbox is back in the closet.

Here are "Three Jewels" of a different sort.

On reverse, it says:
Persia Sept 14th
1911
Received your card last
night Glad to hear you were
all right. All well here
Only I have a bad could
How is W (?) Valley ****(?)
Soe Good by
Frank

Miss Elsie Turney
Roosevelt
Okla.

Postmark is Persia, Iowa, Sept 14, 1911

Three Jewels, Perfect Movement.

It's hard to miss the light humor of the double entendre here. The three women flashing a little ankle make me think of classic Cole Porter, Anything Goes.
"In olden times a glimpse of stocking
was looked on as something shocking.
Now, heaven knows, anything goes."

Sigh. If mister Porter could see us now ...

Okay, here's one that's really about real jewelry.

Here we have a tintype of a lovely woman wearing a large necklace.

Now, we are looking at a time when about the only “plastic” items around were the celluloid collars that men wore. So this necklace is probably not a plastic, like much of costume jewelry today.

original

Using my kitchen food scale I weighed some carved wood drapery rings about that size. They weighed a half an ounce each. I count about 54 rings showing in the photograph. Add on about 16 for the two loops behind her neck and you have 70 rings. Seventy carved wood rings would weigh (Are the brain cells clicking?) 35 ounces. That’s two pounds, three ounces. Of wood rings. Add on the fact that the wood rings are probably linked together with small metal jump rings. They weigh something too. (Ten paper clips weighed a half ounce.)

But the whole necklace is likely metal of some sort. That much precious metal would be astronomical in value, so it is probably not gold or platinum or silver. That leaves what? Copper? Brass? Tin? How about pewter? Is it some obscure zinc alloy we called “pot” or “monkey” metal?

Aluminum was not even “discovered” until 1827 and it was a couple more decades before it was in general usage. So it is probably not aluminum. (Remember the “chains” we made of those obsolete pull-tabs from aluminum drink cans?)

I can't think of a metal that would make that chain weigh less than three pounds but it likely would be double that. Hanging around one's neck, it would seem literally like an albatross after only a short time.

Could it be made of papier mache? I remember a neighbor who had a bead curtain across the entry to her parlor. As I child I determined that the “beads” were mostly made of strips of papier mache, rolled, sanded and painted. I’m not sure how rings could be made from papier mache.

For reference, all of the clothes I wear, including the usual keys, wallet, comb and change in the pockets, weigh less than five pounds. Here is a necklace that ALONE weighs at least a couple pounds.

adjusted

Considering all the time, effort and sacrifice that women make for their appearance, maybe two or three pounds of jewelry is not such a stretch of the imagination.

What do you think?

This week's SEPIA SATURDAY suggestion is about JEWELS

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