Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
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| Old Photo of Me Using an Aquasound Metal Detector. |
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After Warren's amazing ring find that I showed a few days ago, I thought it would be a good time to look at some of the things that will help you get a good idea of a ring's age. If you don't know what to look for you can easily mistake a ring that is centuries old for a new ring or vice versa. In the past I mistook some very old finds for modern finds. It can be tricky. I remember one enameled ring found on a 1715 Fleet beach that I immediately concluded was modern because I thought enameling was a more modern technique. I was wrong about that. That is just one example.
Below is an old Roman ring. Would you know right that it was old when if you dug it up. And what would you look fo?.
There are some features on this ring that would make you think it might be real old as soon as you saw it. First, the setting. The setting is covers everything but the top of the stone. The setting would be one of the first things that would suggest to me that it is probably an old ring. Secondly, the stone is polished instead of cut like most of today's gem stones.
Rings looked fairy similar up through the middle ages. As I explained the other day, gems were not faceted until later.
Here is a web site on antique rings.
http://www.langantiques.com/university/Rings:_Ancient_to_Neoclassical
Below is an example of an 18th century ring that is faceted.
You can see that the the diamonds are clearly faceted. Now look at the settings. The stones are surrounded by the setting. They are not set with prongs like most of the diamond rings of today.
18th century rings will often be "foiled." The gem will be surrounded on the sides and bottom with foil - sometimes gold. Modern diamond rings are faceted and the setting is very open to permit the light to flow through the gemstone.
I"m not a jewelry expert, but those are a few things that might help you determine if a ring might be old or not. There are other things to look for, but I'll have to get into some of those another time.
Some old things can be in very good shape (especially if they are gold) and look almost new. And modern items can be in terrible condition, but that does not necessarily mean they are old. It can be very difficult to tell the difference between old and new items.
Plain bands can be difficult since you do not have all the clues you would have with a gemstone ring. Crucifixes can also be tricky.
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We now have the two named tropical storms - the first of the hurricane season. We had a named storm earlier in the year, but that was before hurricane season began.
Bret is heading west/northwest along the north coast of South America.
Cindy looks to be headed towards Louisiana.
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| Tropical Storm Cindy Source: nhc.noaa.gov |
On the Treasure Coast we'll have a 2 - 3 foot surf Tuesday and Wednesday. Then it will decrease a bit for the rest of the week.
The tides are a little bigger and we'll have a nice negative tide Tuesday.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
