Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

Totally agree with you, Arlene
Hard stone: No
Pinchbeck: No
Swivel: Yes
Brooch with C clasp... still to see it
Pressed flowers: look like Hortensia/Hydrangea floret
Loving these quizzicality, @Bronwen

 

She's everywhere, she's everywhere!

But pretty sure she usually gets put forward as lava.

Glass, glass, and glass.

I'm going with the flowers are craft project: either fabric or textured paper.

 

With no punctuation, it's all a bunch of individual words in which we can imagine punctuation wherever we want. That seems incorrect.

 

Very good, all. The cameo, as @Jivvy said, is artificial. I have never handled one, but she turns up regularly, often described as lava, so I surmise she is 'lava glass', molded glass with a coating that really does feel like fine grained lava to the fingertips. When undamaged, it is very difficult to tell from genuine lava because the weight & coolness don't differentiate it. However, when you repeatedly see the exact same cameo, in the very same color, you know you are looking at something mass produced. This one has crazed, as have some others I have seen, so really no excuse for mistaking it for hardstone or lava.

From the photos it's not really possible to know for sure about the gold colored mount. @Arlene_V & @kyratango point out, 'pinchbeck' is used fairly indiscriminately as synonymous with 'not really gold, just looks like it'. I let this bit slide because I care much more about the cameo than the setting.

It really does swivel & it does have a C clasp.

A bit unfair perhaps to give you a photo of the other side that does not enlarge the way it does on eBay (did you know you can press Ctrl + + to make the screen bigger?) but as nearly as I can tell, the pressed flower is actually a piece of fabric with a floral print. Since the flower is art work, I did not give any thought to type of flower. Will leave that to the botanically inclined.

And, as @Figtree3 said, the prose, if we can call it that, is execrable.

 

Oddly, the first photo gave her a striped effect, making me wonder if she wasn't simulated ivory. The flower really does look like hydrangea. She was probably someone's Mother's Day gift.

 

She must feel grainy to the touch to be so often mistaken for lava, or sometimes listed as lava glass. I just want you all to know her when you see her because she is so rarely described correctly.

Could be a floret from a hydrangea flower. Definitely no pressed flower there except maybe wallpaper flower.

 

More fun with shell.

 

Very unusual. Have never seen a helmet shell used this way. Does it say Jerusalem on it anywhere? Could be in Hebrew & might blend in with design. Some Zuni carvers make lovely Corn Maidens with creative use of small helmet shells. Cool.

 

ANTIQUE GOLD LAVA GLASS CAMEO BROOCH PENDANT 1870
GBP 195.00 Approximately US $250.30

 

And this is her sister:





Set in 9ct gold; resin nonetheless.

 

It is of the western wall in Jerusalem. Carver is Leonid Kuskin of Belarus born 1945.

 

Thought this one was interesting too following the shape of the shell. Apollo I think it said on Pinterest.

 

I do hope not. There is disagreement about who exactly this is; one camp holds it is Ajax, the other says Menelaus. At least they agree it is one of the heroes of the Trojan War. He has been done many times as a gem, e.g.:

http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/D4C0A7B5-3497-4B20-8CFE-6482ABDB7B96

Cutter of this one did a good job using the horn of the shell. These can truly pop out at you when seen, as they were meant to be, from the front, but do look a bit odd from the side. This one is quite extreme. These are all of the type, a bit more subtle. Apollo is at the lower left:

 

I found this in a local flea market. No I didn't buy it at £70 but was interested enough to photograph it to see what you all thought. Odd holes in the jet?. Sorry about my hands, I hate hands in pictures- seen too many horrors on eBay and years of looking after horses have destroyed mine!

 

@Migg, So sorry about your Mom.....is she at all verbal, and does she have any recall??? IF SO, you could try showing her one or two only, and see if anything comes to her on her own.....it's just a thought. I know, my Mom was too, but on occasion, she would surprise us with something she would see and respond to......

 

@BMRT, I love the one you've chosen to have a jeweler work on for you!!!!

 

Now that one's interesting. It's had the snot beaten out of the back, from the looks of it. Looks older than dirt too, at least the setting. I'm wondering if there weren't pearls in those holes at some point. The glue died of old age and someone removed all of the pearls to make it wearable.

 

Think probably not pearls. The holes are pretty large & there are those craters out around the edges. What I wonder is whether maybe this wasn't originally shell set in jet with the pin on a plate attached directly to the jet in the usual way that has had some damage hidden or just been gussied up by putting it into the secondary silver mount. It's different, I'll give it that.

 

Blue Light Special. This is quite reasonably priced if she appeals to you. The goddess Ceres:



http://www.ebay.com/itm/274070356711

Ends in about 12 hours.