A Family Treasure

                                                                            
Last month one of my favorite customers brought this family heirloom into the shoppe. Her mother had it made back in the 1900s. (That seems so historic doesn't it?)

My client wanted to have the bracelet updated

with less bulk and less weight. She knew exactly

what she wanted even down to the new toggle.

You will notice the coin on the very left is an additional one she brought for me to add to the bracelet.

I removed the bezels from each coin and used a jump ring soldered at the top of each coin to attach them to the bracelet. I used a hard solder to do this as it is much stronger and more secure than using easy solder The coins are all 14kt gold and from the mid-late 1800s to the mid 1900s.

I weighed bracelet before the repair and then after the repair. I have scratched my head several times trying to figure out why there wasn't much change in the weight. As I am typing this I am reminded that the extra gold coin's weight added to the weight of the restyled bracelet. Thus the slight change in weight.

I don't know if you can read this weight is in dwt. A pennyweight (dwt) is a unit of mass. Jewelers use the pennyweight in their calculations for the necessary amount of precious metals in casting items using the lost-wax casting process. It is the common weight used in the valuation of  precious metals. While "dwt" is the most common abbreviation for pennyweight (as "d" was the abbreviation for "penny" in the pre-decimalisation British system), some sources list "pwt" as an alternative.I




If you will look closely at the finished bracelet, you will see I added a security chain for my customer's piece of mind and my very own piece of mind, as this piece truly is a treasure.

Once I was able to do a restoration polish on the bracelet and coins the piece turn out stunning! My customer loved it! ... and I loved that my customer loved it!