Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

I think your cat wants it for herself.. I don't blame her..

 

She knows perfectly well everything belongs to her. Sometimes she feels the need to remind me!

 

A) No, I don't think I ever considered buying a pony tail girl, or a plastic one, or a bull's neck lady
B) Not yet, but my eye is now sharper on carving quality and subject! Thanks Bronwen for showing all kind of examples!
C) Haha, trying to scrutinize the pics of back in listings

 

I don't buy many cameos lately but I do look at them differently. My replies are
A) Yes
B) Maybe (haven't bought any at all so I'm not sure)
C) Yes

Kyratango and I are thinking much the same way about B and C! I hadn't read her reply before initial posting of these replies.

 

Expounding on my answers:

A) yes: I was never tempted or deceived by low-end costume cameo jewelry but I do now pass up some very nice but too "typical" pretty ladies in search of more unusual subjects/renderings.

B) yes: I recently bought a rather plain but nicely carved cameo with a male subject, something I never would have considered before, because he had a classic beauty and he seemed unusual... and he was. Telemachus!

C) yes: I do always check for signatures now though the presence/lack of one does not generally affect my choice of whether to buy or not. (But if a Saulini or Tignani presented itself in my price range I'd snap it up even if the subject matter wasn't in my area of interest!)

 

Exactly. Only pretty ladies I buy these days are signed. And starting to wonder whether it's even worth it to acquire any more Schmolls. I have a handful, there are at least several on my watch list right now & no one but our little circle have ever heard of this guy, whose work is definitely not 'museum quality.' (Sometimes for laughs I do a search for 'museum quality cameo'; the results turn up few to none that I think qualify.)

Elevating standards, broadening horizons...that's the endeavor. Great to hear thread has been a benefit.

Can't wait to see Telemachus as you see him.

 

"Vintage Art Deco (1920-1935) Style 9ct Yellow Gold Conch Shell Cameo Pendant
$839.10"

Sooooo much wrong with the quote above and the cameo below...

 

About half of it is correct. When the price of gold began to shoot up, it seems to have totally distorted the cameo market. At this point, the seller of this lovely has probably seen many comparable with comparable prices asked. It's like they think if there's any gold there, it has to be valuable. Suspect they also forget current trading price of gold is for 24K, not 9K, which would only be 3/8 the price, then use total weight of the pieces as if all parts were gold & take it from there.

When your eye for good cameos becomes sharpened, & you realize that good cameos are not always in worthy settings, you are prepared to spot the bargains.

 

And in the USA, 9K gold isn't even considered "gold".

 

When I was first working out Egyptian hallmarks, I took my newly acquired pair of earrings to my friendly Yemeni neighborhood convenience store proprietor for verification that mark indicated 12K. When he took on in his hand, he looked at it from different angles & asked What is this? Is this gold? Countries seem to have high standards for gold but not silver, or vice versa. In the global market, think silver less than 925 in fineness is not being used much anymore when 800 used to be common in countries that would not see gold under 18K as being worthy of the name.

 

A pretty lady I just got for 35£

I love Victorian swivel brooches, specially if there is some hair work in them

This one, pinckbeck, 4cm by 3.4cm or 1.5/8" by 1.7/16" shows a pleasant cameo, I thought the rather moldy back was woven brown hair... a ribbon decor was replaced at some time, it isn't engraved... (kyratisation project?)

Once open, I found it was brown fabric, glued on a cardboard and the cameo had a scratched illegible (impossible to get a clear pic) signature, and Byne disease...


Good wash, soaked in luke warm water, rub the white stuff and oiled back of cameo.
Little rub with my Chinese wax on the front and here she is

 

I had never heard of Byne disease. Learning something new every day. She’s gorgeous btw! I love the front of the setting, don’t believe I’ve ever seen it before,

 

@Bronwen

Telemachus Bathed:



BTW, he’s huge! Approximately 2 1/4” x 1 3/4” or 55mm x 45mm.
Carefully checked for a signature… nothing.

 

I was watching a lot on eBoo, it was 3 Victorian gold filled pins with branch coral. One of the pieces of coral had a whitish look, now I know why and I am glad I decided not to take a chance on the lot

 

Bronwen's site:
https://cameotimes.com/index.php/reference/byne-s-disease

 

I had some coral pieces on a necklace which had rough white areas, easily fixed with a droplet of thin oil! Often comes from dryness

 

Handsome tall boy! I love his well placed pink blush areas!

 

She's gorgeous, & what a steal. This figure is usually seen as Ariadne:

http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/D4913B30-F3E7-4BBE-B257-7722293460FD
Hard to tell about the ribbon at the bottom. It does look perfect for engraving, & with the swiveling memento compartment, you could have worn it with the dear departed facing front & some sentiment, initials or dates engraved below. Does it show signs of being a replacement for a decorative piece that matched the other three? Nothing in the compartment, so perhaps no owner has ever wanted to wear it as anything but the cameo.

Does appear to be signed. I have the best luck photographing signatures with the surface at an angle to the light & find that often the fluorescent that is such terrible light for color fidelity does a better job for illuminating signatures than window light. You can also try the talcum powder trick.

Wish you had taken a 'before' photo to show us the Byne's. It is not uncommon for helmet shell cameos to have some white haziness on the back that is the remnants of the nest white layer & not Byne's. However, sounds as though the conditions were perfect for its development: helmet shell exposed for a long time in a closed chamber with cardboard on the other side is the perfect recipe.

Congratulations. Hope we can eventually get a better shot of the signature. When does Mr. kyratango get back?

 

Wow, I had luck to catch her
Strangely, the cameo can’t be worn swiveled to back, the pin is too close for that (seller said it was surely not original) and forces on the cameo. I think the brown fabric glued on the card board can be a piece of dress, so a memento.

The ribbon is well modelled, but not the same metal. I’ll leave it as is, engraving isn’t part of my skills...

I’ll try tomorrow tricks to improve the siggy

The before pic is the last one in my post above, not very crusty kind

Mr kyratango must be back to work mid November, but he is fairly in advance on his way to Atlantic...
So... he is considering hiking further in Spain

Meanwhile, I’m hunting on Internet (NOT for another man ) like a mad girl

 

Bluumz has already posted the link for my more complete explanation. To summarize here, although it is called Byne's Disease, it is an oxidative process, like rust. Rust afflicts iron; Byne's is the oxidation & corrosion of materials based on calcium carbonate. When kept enclosed in material that provides one of the right components to mix with atmospheric humidity to form an acid, the calcium carbonate leaches out as a salt. This incrustation washes off easily, but permanent superficial damage is done. Cardboard, probably even more so antique cardboard, is a prime source for an acid-making chemical.

I had not personally encountered the occurrence of Byne's under Ariadne's set of conditions, but it is clearly a hazard & think I'll add something about it to the article on Cameo Times.

Coral is also calcium carbonate based, so should be vulnerable to Byne's, however, I really don't see it. Conch shell doesn't seem particularly vulnerable either.

Dryness was mentioned by kyratango. Red coral is often dyed to deepen or even out the color, and dye can get washed out, but the reason it needs to be dyed is that it is not in the nature of Mediterranean red coral to be the same color in large continuous areas. So called red coral can be anywhere from white deep red; 'angel skin' coral is just pale red coral.

A helmet shell is produced by a single organism with a single set of genes. Coral is a colony of minute individuals, each with its own set of genes. A polyp may not have the same color genes as its neighbor.

This is not the greatest example of photo, best I could find quickly. The white centers of 2 of the roses at the top are natural, not damage or loss of dye:



This next piece does not belong to me, so I don't know the truth about it. On the back, you can see the growth lines as different shades:



The crusty looking white in the crevices of the front could be Byne's, could be other accumulated crud: