Featured Antiquers: Share Your Favorite Purchase Of 2018

With stones like that , it's the furniture who better look out !!!!
I stopped worrying about dinging my good bracelets a long time ago.....if I was ever going to enjoy wearing them....

 

Apatite is somewhat "soft/fragile" compared to quartz,it can be damaged by a number of chemicals including ammonia.

 

It can be damaged by a dirty look, truth be told.

 

I agree, the stones are too easily damaged for me to wear it daily. It will just have to sit up and look pretty.

 

A lot of work on this bracelet, it has certainly a system with an expansible pin to close it ?
I've seen that system on jewelry made around the Mediterranean, not too difficult to repair when broken at the finest end because it's made with a wire solder to a finial.

 

Okay, thanks for that explanation. Not as strange as I thought it might be ie a tip glass for a sex worker. As for humor, how many marriages were arranged back then to the wrong people? Maybe more a socially 'acceptable' message to those who really do have our hearts. Just an fyi?

That's new about the roof tiles with messages as well - and not always about 'love'. It'd be fun to see those if you have time!

Yes, eagles and snakes are often used together as opposing elements of the sky (virtuous and godly) and the ground (puny foolish humans). It's their combination though that also gives us flying dragons, which are either honored or debased in various cultures (I know there are experts here who can say far more about this).

I noticed that the eagle appears to have a baby snake in its mouth - can we assume the large snake is its parent then? I wonder if our dear leader here has something like this in his luxury castle, the 'south WH'. I wouldn't be surprised... He would find the eagle equal to his self-image without doubt.

 

Placed in the history context, there were a lot of countries opposed to Napoleon as you mention in the actual context…
The small one out of his use as a support can be interpreted as a smaller country allied to England and Russia which were the biggest enemies of France at this time.
Always very interesting to read symbols in items from the past, now if you have a iphone young interpreted that as a must, but can't think to the fact that you eat noddles to pay it, in the past they were a lot of small things to define where you are in the social hierarchy, and here it was a proof of your Bonapartisme you put on your desk for the people who visit you, then they know how to speak with you.

The "love" items are common in Switzerland, politically correct or not, you have to never forget that it was not a society based on nobility or casts as in England for example, you can then offer that to the girl, and as it was real, it was conserved until today, then we can think that the girl accept this idea.
I've found some documentation about that in Musée de l'Ariana in Genève in free access.
For the roof tiles it can be interesting to make pictures to present that on the forum, I don't know if that was made in others countries, here they are large regions were you found the earth for tiles and this industry is always in activity at less than 5 kilometers of my home.

 

Yes, that is typical of the North African Moorish style, which is far more intricate than the Berber style.
In North Africa 'Moors' is generally the name for North Africans of Arab descent. They mainly lived in the towns and cities, hence the term city jewellery.
This one also has some European influence, in the cartouches around the stones. Tunisia, being essentially a coastal strip of land, has always had a lot of European influence, and many jewelers came from the centuries old Italian-Tunisian community. The maker's mark is in Latin script.
I like the mix of styles, a truly Mediterranean piece.

Yes, it does. With one of those double-folded pins, that locks behind a protrusion on the inside of the top closure tube, so it never falls out. It saves having to put a safety chain on the pin, better for the overall design. A Berber bracelet would have a single pin, often with a safety chain.
Not that I use it, the bracelet is just big enough to pass over my hand. It could have been worn over a sleeve.

 

Thanks, I've repaired one for my wife and it's certainly mounted with an european cut stone, the cut was too perfect to be made without equipment, I suppose that they trade stones against other products for exportation at the time.

 

They most certainly are, but the lettering is very, very worn out. If you hold the blades up to the light in just the right angle, you can read them, though.

 

If you post a photo, I can take a look if I can see where it is from. The stones could have been imported, although there is a strong tradition of gemstone (and glass) cutting as well. Many jewelers in cosmopolitan cities like Tunis or Algiers would have had good equipment.

 

That sort of stuff did tend to move around; cut and uncut stones moved all over the place, even in the times of the Romans.

 

I’ve had so many good picks this year, I sold a lot of them and purchased this Subaru with the proceeds. It just has to go down as my favorite purchase of the year. Time for a road trip!

 

It's hard to say where gemstones were cut,German cutters were still using "jamb peg" faceting machines in the 1960's.It is not the equipment ,but the person doing the cutting that makes a difference.

 

Mein Schatz is my darling (man). The sweetheart has another, & this other is also male. It would need to be Meine Schatze & eine anderer for the 2 parties to be female. I suspect 'Vivat' is just a traditional start to a toast, as 'Here's to...' is in English. Think she is glad to be rid of him!

 

In Switzerland, we say "Schatz" to a women, or "Schatzli" as more intimate, it's not used as a masculine definition in this case and stay in the home use, personally I've learn german swiss near fifty years ago, it's possible that now young girls say that to a man, in the 18-19th century you never found a woman called his lover with this word and more written on a glass.
To make the difference, Schatz is a family name in France, in Switzerland not common but used.
I've made a search more elaborated on enameled glasses mottos, it seems that they are for two different sociological categories which not appear clearly in the late expo about that(the book from the Musée de l'Ariana is just superb…), one was purely for social use and you offer a glass to your friend who is butcher, and when it's a bad butcher people like on tiles write that clearly, the second one was for loving memorabilia and was not intended to be see by other persons.
As i have some items about that, a post for the loving proofs can be an idea because here we are a little out of the base subject of the post.

 

Mein Schatz is said to men and women alike. The article doesn't change like it would in Romance languages. Schatz means treasure, and though the article 'der' is gender-specific, the meaning of the word, when referring to the person you consider your treasure, is not.
You may have seen 'meine Schätze', but that is plural, my treasures.

Feminine for 'ein anderer' is 'eine andere', but that doesn't apply to Schatz since it is a masculine word.

 

Ha, your "narrowing" led you to share a very nice piece! I agree the bangle must have been barely worn, or by a lady who kept her arms up all day
How did you determine apatite? I must say I'm not familiar with the crystalline form, rather encountered cat's eye apatite (on some of my insect jewellery!) till now

 

Thanks, kyra.

The seller said it was tested by a gemologist. When I got it, I tested it with a Mohs tester, after checking with a loupe for bubbles first. I had seen this form and colour apatite before.

 

As I said you never find Schatz used with a possessive front of it at this time on those items, this is not german, this is swiss, swiss people don't speak "hochdeutsch" especially at this time when german make wars with about everybody. The swiss dialects use a lot of words coming from lands around us, and this was not a written language as it is speak between us before the 70's.
If you have some interest in transcriptions of spoken mottos to illustrate that particularity, I have a nice piece of wood dating from 1702 which take near a year to be read after more than 20 persons try it…