The Original
Introduction
Jewellery, ornaments made of of precious metal, often set with gemstones, worn since ancient times by people of all cultures for personal adornment, as badges of social or official rank, and as emblems of religious, social, or political affiliation. In its widest sense the term jewelry encompasses objects made of many kinds of organic and inorganic materials such as hair, feathers, leather, scales, bones, shells, wood, ceramics, metals, and minerals.
However, the term jewelry properly refers to mounted precious or semiprecious stones and to objects made of valuable or attractive metals such as gold, silver, platinum, copper, and brass. Jewellery has been worn on the head in the form of crowns, diadems, tiaras, aigrettes, hairpins, hat ornaments, earrings, nose rings, earplugs, and lip rings; on the neck in the form of collars, necklaces, and pendants; on the breast in the form of pectorals, brooches, clasps, and buttons; on the limbs in the form of rings, bracelets, armlets, and anklets; and at the waist in the form of belts and girdles, with pendants such as chatelaines, scent cases, and rosaries. Current knowledge of ancient jewelry is derived largely from the preservation of personal objects in tombs. Information about the jewelry of cultures that did not bury valuables with the dead comes from portraits in surviving painting and sculpture.
Jewellery is a form of personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets.
Forms and function
- Middle Eastern Jewellery
Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian tombs of the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC have yielded a great quantity of headdresses, necklaces, earrings, and animal amulet figures in gold, silver, and gems. A well-known example is a royal diadem from Ur made in the shape of thin gold beech leaves (British Museum, London).
Fine gold and silver jewelry was also made in ancient Anatolia, Persia, and Phoenicia. Techniques included granulation (in which surfaces are decorated with clusters of tiny grains of gold), filigree, inlaid gems, and cloisonné and champlevé enamel. Evidence of Egyptian influence on Phoenician work and of Mesopotamian styles on Persian work suggests widespread trade or other contact.
- Greek and Roman Jewellery
Trojan and Cretan artisans of the Minoan period, although working at opposite ends of the Aegean region, executed earrings, bracelets, and necklaces of a common type that persisted from about 2500 BC to the beginning of the Classical period of Greek art (479-323 BC). Typical work consisted of thin coils and chains of linked and plaited wire, and thin foil formed into petals and rosettes. Stamping and enameling were common. Free use was also made of gold granulation and filigree. Stone inlay was rare. Prevailing motifs were spirals and naturalistic patterns drawn from cuttlefish, starfish, and butterflies. Jewelry found at Mycenae and Crete (Kríti), and now in the National Museum in Athens, includes a great number of small gold disks, perforated so that they could be attached to clothing, and gold diadems made of long oval plates covered with repoussé rosettes.
Archaic Greek jewelry and Etruscan and other Italian jewelry made in the period between 700 and 500 BC was almost entirely inspired by Egyptian and Assyrian examples imported by Phoenician merchants (see Etruscan Civilization). The techniques remained fundamentally the same as in the preceding period; embossed or stamped plates were the basic element in the work; granulation continued to be employed and was refined by Etruscan artists to an extraordinary degree. Representative of the period is a handsome Greek necklace from Rhodes that consists of seven rectangular gold plaques bearing winged figures in relief and edged with gold balls (7th century BC, British Museum).
In the Classical period of Greek art, granulation fell out of use, enamel reappeared, and filigree was widely employed. The style was characterized by delicacy and refinement. Plaited gold necklaces were decorated with flowers and tassels; hoop earrings with filigree disks and rosettes became popular. In the succeeding Hellenistic period (323-31 BC), pendant vases, winged victories, cupids, and doves became common motifs. At the same time, an important innovation was the introduction of large colored stones, especially garnets, at the center of designs. This scheme was further elaborated by the Romans, who used a variety of stones and set them in rows bordered with pearls. In Rome, enameling was common, and the art of cameo cutting reached its peak of virtuosity. Cameos, often of great size, were produced in large numbers. A fashionable form of jewelry was the fibula, a brooch resembling a safety pin. Rings were extremely popular, and at the height of the empire they were often worn on all ten fingers. Exotic ornaments made of amber were also in great demand. Toward the end of the Roman Empire, beginning in the 3rd century AD, necklaces and bracelets were formed of gold coins set in elaborate mountings of arcaded patterns; the classical style died out.
- Scythian Jewellery
The excavations of royal burial sites have provided the most complete record of the jewelry of the Scythians, a nomadic people of the Eurasian steppes who absorbed Middle Eastern and Classical Greek influences. Typical art objects of the 1st millennium BC were plaques in the form of stags or other animals, hammered or stamped out of gold and often inlaid with colored stones or glass. Large plaques were mounted on bridles or quivers; small ones were attached to clothing. Plaques, bowls, and personal jewelry of the 5th and 4th centuries BC were often made by Greek artisans and combined the richness of Greek composition and technique with Scythian motifs. The largest collection of Scythian jewelry is in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg.
- Byzantine Jewellery From Gold, Bronze, and Enamel
The Byzantine nobility wore jewelry in lavish profusion. This practice is evident in the 6th-century mosaic portrait of Empress Theodora in the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy. The dress is stiff with gold and set with jewels; pearls, rubies, and emeralds mounted in gold are worn at the neck and shoulders and hang in festoons from the temples to the breast.
A common type of Byzantine earring had a crescent shape executed in gold repoussé openwork with a central cross in a circle flanked by peacocks. The favorite breast pendant was the cross; another type was a jeweled pendant. Most finger rings bore Christian symbols, and the extant examples are more often made of gilded bronze than of gold. Enamel work, especially cloisonné enamel, was refined to a high degree in Byzantine culture and had a strong influence on European jewelry of succeeding periods. A fine example is the jeweled crown of Constance of Aragón (13th century, Palermo Cathedral, Sicily).
- Medieval Jewellery
After the fall of Rome, Roman jewelry forms and techniques remained in general use. Barbarian tribes from eastern Europe, who were skilled at metalwork, combined such elements of the Roman artistic tradition as gold filigree and the fibula form with the Byzantine cloisonné tradition. They also introduced their own regional variations. For example, the fibular, pinlike brooch style became a circular one; these revised-style brooches have been found in Gaul (France) and Scandinavia. Penannular brooches, in the form of a ring with a pin held in place by the weight of the cloth it pierced, were common in Ireland and Scotland. A famous example is the Tara brooch (National Museum, Dublin). The principal motifs were stylized animals and intricate interlacing.
An important technique in medieval jewelry was the use of garnet slices set, like enamel, into metal cells. Examples are garnet-inlaid buckles and clasps from the 7th-century Sutton Hoo ship burial in Suffolk (British Museum) and a crown inlaid with garnets and cabochon (rounded) gems (Real Amería, Madrid), which belonged to the Visigothic king Recceswinth. The famous Alfred jewel (9th century, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) is an example of cloisonné. Quite different are Celtic gold torques, rigid bands that encircled the neck or arm of the wearer.
Beginning in the 11th century, brooches continued to be one of the chief forms of jewelry. They were usually penannular, such as the 12th-century Eagle brooch (Mainz Museum). Chased or enameled pendants of a crucifix or other religious emblem and pendants containing a holy relic were another characteristic adornment, as were rings. By the 14th and 15th centuries, jewelry increasingly became an integral part of dress and was worn in the form of necklaces and girdles, on hairnets, and sewn onto clothes.
- Renaissance Jewellery
During the Renaissance (15th century to 17th century), jewelry became an even more important part of fashionable costume. Rich velvet and silk robes of both men and women were embroidered with pearls and sparkling gems. Separate pieces of jewelry demonstrated the close alliance between the decorative arts and those of painting, architecture, and sculpture. Renaissance jewelry is characterized by rich color and by sculptural or architectural design. Religious subjects were gradually replaced by classical and naturalistic themes. Typical of the period is the sculptural pendant in which irregular pearls, enameling, and colored gems were combined. Also popular were brooches or pendants containing a miniature portrait. Necklaces, chains, and girdles continued in fashion. Designs for jewels, some by such famous painters as Hans Holbein the Younger and Albrecht Dürer, were printed and circulated throughout Europe, creating an international style. Among artisans, the best known today is Benvenuto Cellini, but none of his jewels is believed to have survived. Notable examples of Renaissance jeweled pendants of the 16th century include the Phoenix jewel (British Museum) and the Canning jewel (Victoria and Albert Museum, London).
- Jewellery in the 17th and 18th Centuries
Jewellery of later periods falls into two main groups: diamond jewelry, which was usually conservative in design, and jewelry that reflected changing fashions in clothes and the arts. With the introduction in the 17th century of new methods of faceting gems to give them greater brilliance, the diamond became the preferred stone for precious jewellery, a reference that remains. At the same time, in the 18th and 19th centuries, industrial development brought mass production of more popular jewelry in cheaper materials. In addition to diamond tiaras, rings, and brooches of naturalistic design, there was less costly Jewellery in the neoclassical style inspired by originals excavated at Pompeii, and in revivals of Gothic, Renaissance, and Egyptian styles (see Neoclassical Art and Architecture). The materials utilized, in addition to gold and semiprecious stones, included base-metal alloys, paste (for imitation gemstones), steel, and cast iron. Techniques included mechanical processes for stamping and cutting out patterns and settings.
In the case of both luxury Jewellery and popular jewellery, a characteristic arrangement was a matched set, or parure. A woman's parure often included a tiara or ring in addition to the basic combination of necklace, earrings, and brooch. A man's parure, in the 18th century, consisted of buttons, shoe buckles, sword hilt, and the insignia of knightly orders. Many magnificent parures and other jewels were created for the royal houses of Europe, which for several hundred years have accumulated permanent collections of coronation regalia, state and personal Jewellery, and important single stones like the Koh-i-noor and Hope diamonds. Many of the brilliant crowns have been reset, broken up, or lost, but a variety of impressive collections remain in the Tower of London, the Vienna Treasury, and the Kremlin. Jeweled accessories were also fashionable. These included watch cases, snuffboxes, seals, and thimble cases.
The Jewellery worn in colonial America was mostly imported from Europe. Although records exist of simple jewels made in the colonies at the time, almost none has survived.
The most opulent Jewellery was made during the Second Empire in France, when a demand for costly gems set the style for the lavish use of diamonds and pearls. With the emphasis on extravagant display and the intrinsic appeal of precious stones, the workmanship of the metal settings was neglected and became inferior. Only at the end of the 19th century did Peter Carl Fabergé reintroduce exacting craftsmanship in jewelry and in such accessories as boxes, cane handles, fans, and picture frames. Like the goldsmith-jewelers of the Renaissance, Fabergé specialized in the contrast of colors and materials, and his most original designs are those that combine gold, enamel, and various gems.
- 20th-Century Jewellery
About 1900 in Paris, this revival of the goldsmith's art was carried further by the jewelers of the art nouveau movement, led by René Lalique. Ignoring historic styles, he took his themes from plants, birds, and insect forms. Emphasizing design more than the costliness of material, he used enamel, ivory, glass, and horn as often as semiprecious stones and gems. The art nouveau style was introduced in the United States by Louis Comfort Tiffany, one of the first important American jewellery designers.
Modern jewellery reflects important changes in fashions and technology. After World War I (1914-1918), the vogue for short hair for women resulted in the disappearance of formerly popular jeweled combs and hair ornaments. In the same period jeweled vanity cases, wristwatches, and cigarette cases came into style. Strong, lightweight metals such as platinum, iridium, and palladium permitted unconventional settings for gemstones, and new casting methods resulted in more sculptural designs and a greater use of different metallic textures and finishes. As in the Renaissance, painters and sculptors again designed jewels. The works of French painter Georges Braque and American sculptor Alexander Calder combine appropriateness with wearability.
The jewels of Spanish painter Salvador Dalí were more extravagant and were more representative of design for its own sake than as a function of the jewel to be worn. Although a great deal of modern jewelry is designed and made by large firms, the tradition of the artist-craftsman is strong in Scandinavia and the United States, where silver, semiprecious stones, hammered copper, and other less costly materials are commonly used. Plastics are often employed in inexpensive jewelry. Arts-and-crafts shops produce a vast selection of abstract and naturalistic designs in rings, bracelets, earrings, necklaces, and brooches. Although jewellery in the 19th and early 20th centuries was worn primarily by women, in the late 20th century some men were wearing jewelry such as neck chains, bracelets, and earrings.
- Asian Jewellery
In Asia, techniques and styles of jewellery have continued in unbroken traditions from remote antiquity to the present day. Indian jewellery—including gold fillets and earrings, bead necklaces, and metal and pottery bangles—was produced in the Indus Valley before 1500 BC. Later, medieval sculpture depicts men and women wearing heavy necklaces, bracelets, girdles, and earrings. Today Indian goldsmiths, expert in the techniques also common in the West, produce enameled, soldered, granulated, and filigreed work of great refinement. Some of the best work, especially silver filigree, is produced in Cuttack, Kashmir, and Bengal. Fine historic examples of Indian work shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum include a crescent-shaped gold brooch with granulated gold balls and pendants and gold and enameled turban ornaments from Jaipur, Rajputana. Other examples, especially from the south of India, bear in relief subjects from Hindu mythology.
Illuminated manuscripts indicate that in Persia both men and women wore rich jewelry—head-gear, necklaces, and earrings. The characteristic material was enameled gold; the main center for this work was Shiraz. The same technique is often employed today in the making of the charms and amulets common in Iran.
Silver was used in Chinese traditional jewelry more often than gold and was gilded to prevent tarnishing. Silver and gold were frequently enameled in blue, a favorite color, and often decorated with blue kingfisher feathers. Jade was the most valued among precious stones. Under the Chinese Empire, jeweled emblems such as the buttons on the hats of mandarins indicated rank, and extremely elaborate silver and gold filigree headdresses were worn by women of high position. Dragons, phoenixes, and many Buddhist symbols were used as decoration or charms on necklaces, rings, and bracelets. Outstanding examples of Chinese jewellery are exhibited at the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The gold and silver jewellery of Nepal, Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), and Thailand is related to Indian and Chinese work and is also outstanding. The Japanese have excelled in lacquer and ivory ornaments such as combs, buttons, and purse toggles worn at the waist.
- Pre-Columbian Jewellery
The ready availability of gold accounts for the large amount of jewelry made in South America and Mexico before the Spanish conquest of 1532. South American metalworking began in the Andes and gradually spread north to Mexico. Intricate casting techniques were used for personal and ceremonial ornaments. The themes were almost exclusively religious, with an emphasis on masks. Mosaic inlays featuring turquoise originated in Peru before 700 AD and were common in Mexican jewelry by the 14th century. A characteristic object was the breast ornament, often constructed out of hammered and cast elements soldered or riveted together and enriched with cast thread decoration. A Chavin piece features a mask flanked by animal heads and pendants (Museum of the American Indian, New York City). Necklaces of turquoise, shell, and other beads and earrings and earplugs were also common. The Maya in Mexico preferred earplugs, pendants, and bracelets of jade.
- African Jewellery
The vast continent of Africa has produced jewellery of great beauty and variety since prehistoric times. In addition to the work of the ancient Egyptians already discussed, northern Africa is noted for the silverwork, plain and enameled, of the Tuareg and other desert peoples. South of the Sahara, craftspeople in the great medieval kingdoms of Africa made rings, earrings, bracelets, and other ornaments out of gold (Ghana), amber (Songhai), ivory and brass (Benin), and bronze (Yoruba). Beads of shell and of glass have long been important elements of personal adornment all over Africa. Jewellery has also been used as a vehicle for religious symbols, as in the crosses of Ethiopia and the amulets of northwest Africa, and to indicate social or economic status. Today's African jewellery echoes many traditional themes, often with modern materials.
Jewellery will soon be = 3 letter Words
Materials and Types
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from Latin: aurum "gold") and anatomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water.
From the first discoveries of gold along the rivers of Africa, Asia and South America, the sheer ease with which the metal could be worked inspired craftsmen to shape it for adornment. The history of gold jewellery goes back at least 5,000-6,000 years. Bracelets, chains and earrings of great sophistication and elegance were worn by both men and women of the Sumer civilisation around 3,000 BC.
Gold dissolves in alkaline solutions of cyanide, which have been used in mining. Gold has been a valuable and highly sought-after precious metal for coinage, jewelry, and other arts since long before the beginning of recorded history. Gold standards have been the most common basis for monetary policies throughout human history, being widely supplanted by fiat currency only in the late 20th century. Gold has also been frequently linked to a wide variety of symbolism's and ideologies. The world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry.
An astonishing range of gold artifact have been discovered in the royal tombs at Ur.
(Credit: Ancient Art & Architecture)
Today, gold Jewellery is the foremost end use for gold, with over 3,000 tonnes (96.6 million oz) required for fabrication each year.
India is the leading consumer of gold Jewellery at around 615 tonnes (19.8 m oz), followed by the United States at just over 380 tonnes (12.2 m oz), China at around 180 tonnes (5.9m oz) and Saudi Arabia at just over 150 tonnes (4.9 m oz).
Color
Different colors of Ag-Au-Cu alloys
Whereas most other pure metals are gray or silvery white, gold is yellow. This color is determined by the density of loosely bound (valence) electrons; those electrons oscillate as a collective "plasma" medium described in terms of a quasi-particle called plasmon. The frequency of these oscillations lies in the ultraviolet range for most metals, but it falls into the visible range for gold due to subtle relativistic effects that affect the orbitals around gold atoms. Similar effects impart a golden hue to metallic caesium.
Common colored gold alloys such as rose gold can be created by the addition of various amounts of copper and silver, as indicated in the triangular diagram to the left. Alloys containing palladium or nickel are also important in commercial jewelry as these produce white gold alloys. Less commonly, addition of manganese, aluminium, iron, indium and other elements can produce more unusual colors of gold for various applications.
Use and Applications
ü Monetary exchange
Gold has been widely used throughout the world as a vehicle for monetary exchange, either by issuance and recognition of gold coins or other bare metal quantities, or through gold-convertible paper instruments by establishing gold standards in which the total value of issued money is represented in a store of gold reserves.
At the beginning of World War I the warring nations moved to a fractional gold standard, inflating their currencies to finance the war effort. After World War II gold was replaced by a system of convertible currency following the Bretton Woods system. Gold standards and the direct convertibility of currencies to gold have been abandoned by world governments, being replaced by fiat currency in their stead.
ü Investment
Gold Price per gram between Jan 1971 and Jan 2012. The graph shows nominal price in US Dollars, the price in 1971 and 2011 US Dollars
Many holders of gold store it in form of bullion coins or bars as a hedge against inflation or other economic disruptions. However, some economists do not believe gold serves as a hedge against inflation or currency depreciation.
ü Jewelry
Because of the softness of pure (24k) gold, it is usually alloyed with base metals for use in jewelry, altering its hardness and ductility, melting point, color and other properties. Alloys with lower carat-age, typically 22k, 18k, 14k or 10k, contain higher percentages of copper, or other base metals or silver or palladium in the alloy. Copper is the most commonly used base metal, yielding a redder color.
Eighteen-carat gold containing 25% copper is found in antique and Russian jewelry and has a distinct, though not dominant, copper cast, creating rose gold. Fourteen-carat gold-copper alloy is nearly identical in color to certain bronze alloys, and both may be used to produce police and other badges. The Japanese craft of Mokume-gane exploits the color contrasts between laminated colored gold alloys to produce decorative wood-grain effects.
ü Medicine
In medieval times, gold was often seen as beneficial for the health, in the belief that something so rare and beautiful could not be anything but healthy. Even some modern esotericists and forms of alternative medicine assign metallic gold a healing power. Some gold salts do have anti-inflammatory properties and are used as pharmaceuticals in the treatment of arthritis and other similar conditions. Gold based injections have been explored as a means to help to reduce the pain and swelling of rheumatoid arthritis and tuberculosis. However, only salts and radioisotopes of gold are of pharmacological value, as elemental (metallic) gold is inert to all chemicals it encounters inside the body.
Gold alloys are used in restorative dentistry, especially in tooth restorations, such as crowns and permanent bridges.
ü Industry
Gold solder is used for joining the components of gold jewelry by high-temperature hard soldering or brazing.
Gold can be made into thread and used in embroidery.
Gold produces a deep, intense red color when used as a coloring agent in cranberry glass.
Gold is used as the reflective layer on some high-end CDs.
Gold can be manufactured so thin that it appears transparent. It is used in some aircraft cockpit windows for de-icing or anti-icing by passing electricity through it. The heat produced by the resistance of the gold is enough to deter ice from forming.
As gold is a good reflector of electromagnetic radiation such as infrared and visible light as well as radio waves, it is used for the protective coatings on many artificial satellites.
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag (Latin:argentum, from the Indo-European root *arg- for "grey" or "shining") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal. The metal occurs naturally in its pure, free form (native silver), as an alloy with gold and other metals, and in minerals such as argentiteand chlorargyrite. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, and zinc refining.
Silver has long been valued as a precious metal, and it is used to make ornaments, jewelry, high-value tableware, utensils (hence the term silverware), and currency coins. Its compounds are used in photographic film, and dilute silver nitrate solutions.
Silver is a very ductile, malleable (slightly harder than gold), monovalent coinage metal, with a brilliant white metallic luster that can take a high degree of polish. It has the highest electrical conductivity of all metals, even higher than copper, but its greater cost has prevented it from being widely used in place of copper for electrical purposes.
Many well known uses of silver involve its precious metal properties, including currency, decorative items and mirrors. The contrast between the appearance of its bright white color to other media makes it very useful to the visual arts. It has also long been used to confer high monetary value as objects (such as silver coins and investment bars) or make objects symbolic of high social or political rank.
Silver, in the form of electrum (a gold-silver alloy), was coined to produce money around 700 BC by the Lydians. Later, silver was refined and coined in its pure form. Many nations used silver as the basic unit of monetary value.
ü Jewelry and silverware
Jewelry and silverware are traditionally made from sterling silver (standard silver), an alloy of 92.5% silver with 7.5% copper. Sterling silver (stamped 925) is harder than pure silver, and has a lower melting point (893 °C) than either pure silver or pure copper. Britannia silver is an alternative, hallmark-quality standard containing 95.8% silver, often used to make silver tableware and wrought plate. Silver is a constituent of almost all colored carat gold alloys and carat gold solders, giving the alloys paler color and greater hardness.
Silver is much cheaper than gold, though still valuable, and so is very popular with jewelers who are just starting out and cannot afford to make pieces in gold, or as a practicing material for goldsmith apprentices. Silver has also become very fashionable, and is used frequently in more artistic jewelry pieces.
Traditionally, silversmiths mostly made "silverware" (cutlery, table flatware, bowls, candlesticks and such). Only in more recent times has silversmithing become mainly work in jewelry, as much less solid silver tableware is now handmade.
ü Dentistry
Silver can be alloyed with mercury, tin and other metals at room temperature to make amalgams that are widely used for dental fillings. To make dental amalgam, a mixture of powdered silver and other metals is mixed with mercury to make a stiff paste that can be adapted to the shape of a cavity. The dental amalgam achieves initial hardness within minutes but sets hard in a few hours.
ü Mirrors and Optics
Mirrors which need superior reflectivity for visible light are made with silver as the reflecting material in a process called silvering, though common mirrors are backed with aluminium. Using a process called sputtering, silver (and sometimes gold) can be applied to glass at various thicknesses, allowing different amounts of light to penetrate. Silver is usually reserved for coatings of specialized optics, and the silvering most often seen in architectural glass and tinted windows on vehicles is produced by sputtered aluminium, which is cheaper and less susceptible to tarnishing and corrosion. Silver is the reflective coating of choice for solar reflectors.
Applications
Photography used 30.98% of the silver consumed in 1998 in the form of silver nitrate and silver halides. In 2001, 23.47% was used for photography, while 20.03% was used in jewelry, 38.51% for industrial uses, and only 3.5% for coins and medals. The use of silver in photography has rapidly declined, due to the lower demand for consumer color film from the advent of digital technology; since 2007, of the 894.5 million ounces of silver in supply, just 128.3 million ounces (14.3%) were consumed by the photographic sector, and the total amount of silver consumed in 2007 by the photographic sector compared to 1998 is just 50% .
ü Other industrial and commercial applications
ü Medical
Platinum
Platinum is a dense (heavy) hard silvery metallic element.
This Yanagisawa A9932J alto saxophone has a solid silver bell and neck with solid phosphor bronze body. The bell, neck and key-cups are extensively engraved. It was manufactured in 2008.
Silver and silver alloys are used in the construction of high quality musical wind instruments of many types. Flutes, in particular, are commonly constructed of silver alloy or silver plated, both for appearance and for the frictional surface properties of silver.
ü Clothing
Silver inhibits the growth of bacteria and fungi on clothing, such as socks, so is added to reduce odors and the risk of bacterial and fungal infection. It is incorporated into clothing or shoes either by integrating silver nano particles into the polymer from which yarns are made or by coating yarns with silver.
Hippocrates, the "father of medicine", wrote that silver had beneficial healing and antidisease properties, and the Phoenicians stored water, wine, and vinegar in silver bottles to prevent spoiling. In the early 20th century, people would put silver coins in milk bottles to prolong the milk's freshness. Its germicidal effects increased its value in utensils and as jewellery.
Silver is widely used in topical gels and impregnated into bandages because of its wide-spectrum antimicrobial activity.
Silver compounds were used to prevent infection in World War I before the advent of antibiotics. Silver nitrate solution use continued, then was largely replaced by silver sulfadiazine cream (SSD cream), which generally became the "standard of care" for the antibacterial and antibiotic treatment of serious burns until the late 1990s. Now, other options, such as silver-coated dressings (activated silver dressings), are used in addition to SSD cream.
In 2007, a company introduced a glass product they claimed had antibacterial properties by coating the glass with a thin layer of silver. In addition, in 2007 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an endotracheal breathing tube with a fine coat of silver for use in mechanical ventilation, after studies found it reduced the risk of ventilator-associated pneumonia.
Silver is commonly used in catheters. Silver alloy catheters are more effective than standard catheters for reducing bacteriuria in adults having short term cauterization in hospitals. This meta-analysis clarifies discrepant results among trials of silver-coated urinary catheters by revealing silver alloy catheters are significantly more effective in preventing urinary tract infections than are silver oxide catheters. Though silver alloy urinary catheters cost about $6 more than standard urinary catheters, they may be worth the extra cost, since catheter-related infection is a common cause of nosocomial infection and bacteremia.
Various silver compounds, devices to make homeopathic solutions and colloidal silver suspensions are sold as remedies for numerous conditions.
Although platinum was used by the South American Indians before the fifteenth century. They could not melt it, but developed a technique for sintering it with gold on charcoal, to produce artefacts. A pre-Columbian platinum ingot was found which contained 85% pure platinum.
When the Spanish conquered South America, they discovered the Indians use of platinum, and called it "platina", a diminutive which means "little silver", a somewhat derogatory term. It was considered by the Spanish as a worthless nuisance and impurity.
Platinum is closely related to five other metals, palladium, ruthenium, rhodium, osmium, and iridium. Together these six are known as the platinum group metals, often referred to as PGM. They all have somewhat similar chemical and mechanical properties.
In about 1780, Janety was able to refine it using aqua regia, Smith & Tennant developed an arsenic refining method after 1800. This was highly toxic and dangerous.
Until about 1800, it was not realised that there were in fact six different metals. Palladium was not separated and identified until 1803.
Platinum's melting point is very high, and consequently it is difficult to melt. It was first melted by Lavoisier shortly after 1800.
Until large deposits were discovered by Merensky at Rustenberg in South Africa in 1924, 93% of the world's supply of platinum came from the USSR. the Rustenberg deposits are considered very rich in platinum. The ratio between platinum and palladium recovered is 2.5%!
Platinum started to be used in jewellery in Europe about the mid nineteenth century, but it was not until the 1924 find that it started to become commonly used. It became very fashionable during the art deco movement.
It possesses very good mechanical properties for jewellery, being strong, and highly durable. It is ideal for stone settings as it has a low "spring-back" rate.
In Jewellery, like other precious metals it is mixed with other metals to form alloys. Before 1975 there was no requirement for platinum to be assayed and hallmarked in Britain, therefore there was no recognised standard. Because of this, most early pieces marked "plat" or platinum, may be of very variable, and quite low fineness, and most would fail modern assay standards.
Platinum has been hallmarkable in Britain since January 1st 1975. From then until January 1st 1999, the only officially recognised standard of purity or "fineness" in Britain was 950 parts per 1000. From this year, there are now four standards, which are:-
- 850
- 900
- 950
- 999 parts per thousand.
Typically platinum is alloyed with copper, iridium, palladium, rhodium, osmium or titanium
Platinum has often been described as the purest, or the most precious metal. Both these claims are inaccurate. The "purest" claim was based on the fact that the highest purity precious metal generally recognised is sterling silver, at 925 parts per thousand (22 carat gold is 916 parts per thousand), but this ignores the fact that Britannia silver, 958 parts per thousand, has been a recognised standard in Britain since 1796.
The price of pure platinum is generally higher than gold, but not always, therefore the claim that platinum is the most precious metal is also a typical marketing exaggeration, besides rhodium is frequently double the price of platinum. As noted previously, the Spanish conquerors of Latin America considered it a worthless nuisance.
Because of the high melting point, and the other difficulties in extraction and refining, platinum is expensive to buy and process. This includes higher labour costs for manufacturing it, and also higher expense in recycling it. We can supply any of our own designs in platinum on request.
Platinum was first used for coins in Russia 1828. In 1865 some Spanish gold coins were counterfeited using gold plated platinum. In 1907 Louis Cartier made the first platinum watch.
Caring for your Gem Stones
Natural and synthetic stones need proper care,TLC. Here are some tips for extending the life and lustre of your stones:
- Clean stones with hot, soapy water.
- Dry stones thoroughly with a soft towel.
- Most stones can be cleaned in an ultra- sonic cleaner; a few can be permanently damaged if cleaned in one (amber, coral, lapis, opal, pearl and turquoise for example).
- Rub gems with a smooth, soft cloth to remove fingerprints and keep them shiny.
- Store stones away from intense heat and light.
Many gems must be treated with care. Can your stones be steam-cleaned or ultra-sonically cleaned?
The answers are below:
Jewellery in India
The roots of jewelry in India can be traced in the history of more than three millennia. Before the well-known civilizations had taken shape, jewelry making in India had become an integral part of the dressing habits of the people of India.
Jewelry made of natural materials
In early India, people fashioned jewelry out of natural materials found in abundance all over the country-seeds, feathers, leaves, berries, fruits, flowers, animal bones, claws and teeth. Even today such jewelry is used by the different tribal societies. Excavations at Mohenjodaro and other sites of the Indus Valleycivilization have unearthed a wealth of ornaments. It appears that both men and women of that time wore jewelry made of gold, silver, copper, ivory and precious and semi-precious stones. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are abound with descriptions of ornaments and the code of Manu defines the duties of the goldsmith.
By the third century B.C., India was the leading exporter of gemstones, particularly diamonds. Gold was usually imported into the country, a practice prevalent even during the Mughal period.
In India the ornaments are made practically for every part of the body. Such a variety of ornaments bears the testimony to the excellent skills of the jewelers in India. The range of jewelry in India varied from religious one to purely aesthetic one. Jewelry was crafted not just for humans but also for the gods, ceremonial elephants and horses. The craft of jewelry was given a royal patronage right from the ancient times. The rajas and maharajas vied with each other to possess the most exquisite and the most magnificent pieces of jewelry. Temple complexes supported many different styles of jewelery-scentedsandalwood bead necklaces, the prayer bead or the rudraksh (berry of the elaocarpus canitrus) necklace, multicoloured silk and gold thread necklaces.
Jewelry in India fulfils many functions and wearing it has several implications. At the most obvious level, it is a form of adornment satisfying Man's innate desire to beautify himself. However, jewelry also serves as an identity marker, as security, and as symbol of social contracts. For Hindus, jewelry is associated with most religious ceremonies, especially the samaskaras (stages of life) such as the namkarna (naming ceremony) or the vivaha (marriage). To signify marital status, Hindu women must wear the mangalsutra or the thali, which consist of gold pendants strung in a certain combination with other beads. Traditionally, a goldsmith pierces a child's ear with a gold pin twelve days after it is born.
Jewelry as Investment
In the Hindu, Jain and Sikh community where women do not inherit landed property, jewelry was a major component of the streedhana (gifts given to a woman at the time of her marriage). jewelry, because of its easy convertibility into cash, was thus regarded as security and investment.
Jewelry as investment and identity marker is evident in the plethora of ornaments worn by people from nomadic and migrant tribal communities. It is not uncommon to find Banraja women wearing a wide variety of silver jewelry. A profusion of earrings in various sizes, bangles of bone, shell and ivory extending from the wrist to the armpit along with silver bracelets, chokers, pendants and necklaces, nose rings, and heavy anklets are worn by most of the migrant groups, especially in Western India.
The setting of precious gems and stones in rings, pendants, necklaces and bracelets gained prominence due to the belief that these stones are associated with certain powers. In Bengal, it is common to find iron, silver and gold wires twisted together to form a bracelet, a combination that according to popular belief gives the wearer health and strength.
The Goldsmiths
In India, goldsmiths are usually men and are referred to by a variety of names depending on the region-sonar, swarnakara, panchallar, or thattan. In the Vedic period, goldsmiths had a much higher standing than most other artisans, perhaps because they worked with a precious metal. The goldsmiths had royal patrons. Historical records show that Indian jewellers mastered quite early the various skills required to make fine jewelery-mixing alloys, molding, drawing fine wires, setting stones, inlay work, relief, drawing gold and silver into thin wires, plating and gilding. In smaller places, the goldsmith may perform all the processes involved in producing a finished piece. In cities, the different operations are undertaken by separate people-the goldsmith prepares the skeletal framework, the chatera engraves, the kundansaaz or jaria sets the stones while the meenasaaz enamels it.
Unique Styles of Jewellery
Different regions of India boast of jewellery making styles unique to them -in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh fine filigree work in silver, in Jaipur the art of enamelling or meenakari, temple jewellery from Nagercoil and kundan or the setting of semi-precious or precious stones in gold from Delhi. A wide variety of silver beads are found all over India, especially in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.
In filigree work, patterns of leaves, flowers, butterflies, birds and geometrical shapes are made with silver wires of varying thickness. The skilled jewellers draw out fine wires of silver mixed with a little bit of lead and make an outline of the pattern in thick wire. Fine wires are then collected inside the framework to create a delicate lace-like appearance.
Meenakari and kundan are the styles of jewelry making influenced by the Mughals and are usually used in combination to make jewelry that can be worn on both sides such as chokers and necklaces. The temple jewelry of Nagercoil consists of traditional gold ornaments studded with red and green semi-precious stones. These were used as offerings to the Gods and hence the name. Today, some of these designs are being made in silver and then washed with gold.
In Assam, soft 24 carat gold is fashioned into earrings and necklaces modeled on the local flora and fauna-earrings like the hona, which replicate the orchid and the lokaparo, which consists of two birds placed back to back.
In Nagaland, gold is used to craft imitations of the human head and long funnel shaped beads which are used in combination with shells, animal claws and teeth and precious and semi-precious stones.
The gems and jewellery industry occupies an important position in the Indian economy. It is a leading foreign exchange earner, as well as one of the fastest growing industries in the country.
The two major segments of the sector in India are gold jewellery and diamonds. Gold jewellery forms around 80 per cent of the Indian jewellery market, with the balance comprising fabricated studded jewellery that includes diamond and gemstone studded jewellery.
The Indian gems and jewellery sector is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 13 per cent during 2011–2013. The Gems and Jewellery (G&J) market essentially comprises of sourcing, processing, manufacturing and selling of precious metals and gemstones, such as, Gold, Platinum, Silver, Diamond, Ruby, and Sapphire etc.
The industry is dominated by family jewelers, who constitute nearly 96 percent of the market.
The Indian jewellery sector is largely unorganized at present. There are about 450,000 goldsmiths spread throughout the country.
The Indian jewellery market is one of the largest in the world, with a market size of $18 billion.
Urban market is about 38% of this base.
Branded jewellery is less than 5% of the overall market.
India, the world's biggest consumer of bullion, has changed the import duty on gold to two percent of value from the earlier flat 300 rupees per 10 grams and that of silver to six percent of value from 1,500 rupees per kilogram, the government said.
The changes could nearly double duties on both metals. Prices of gold on the Multi Commodity Exchange rose after the duty hike with the February gold contract gaining as much as one percent to 27,760 rupees.
Silver for March delivery rose more than two percent at 53,361 rupees per kg.
Gold jewellery demand in India, a major global market, is estimated to have risen 5 to 7% in 2011 and is set to grow a further 10 to 15% this year with bullion prices falling back after recent gains, the head of Gitanjali Gems, India's biggest jewellery retailer said on Sunday.
India's jewellery demand dropped 26% in the third quarter of 2011 to 125.3 tonnes
The Indian subcontinent has the longest continuous legacy of jewellery-making, with a history of over 5,000 years. One of the first to start jewellery-making were the peoples of the Indus Valley Civilization.
Even today, you can find jewelry used as a form of currency, by the practice of keeping large amounts of precious jewelry hidden away in deposit boxes, chests in our home, bank vaults, or other secure areas.
In a young ladies dowry, you would often find items of jewelry that would be given to the groom at the time of the wedding. Today, jewelry has been replaced with a hope chest. The young girl now, places items in her hope chest instead of her father adding money or jewelry. The hope chest today is nothing like a dowry of the past since usually it only holds household items.
People in Indian society buy gold as a matter of:
ü Investment
ü Weddings and Special occasion purchases
ü Store of value
75% of women say they are constantly search for new designs. Over 50% of gold jewellery is bought for weddings. Gold is seen as auspicious, an investment, for adornment.
Even the wearing of wedding rings in the Western culture is a symbol of love and marriage. Symbolic jewelry shows the belief in your religion, the honor of being a member of a club, or even as simple as a mothers ring given to her by her children. All are symbolic of belonging.
Some cultures wear jewelry to ward off evil or bad luck. Some of jewelry items used is symbols like the ankh, stones, plants, animals, Khamsa, and glyphs. Each one warding off a certain evil or drawing in good luck to the person wearing the item.
Religion does a play a huge part in how much jewelry a person wears. Many cultures forbid the excessive wearing of jewelry and wearing gold by men is a prohibited by Islam society.
Festivals in India are also symbolic of jewellery. For example, it is considered auspicious to purchase jewellery on particular festivals such as Diwali, Dhanteras, and Laxmi Puja. Furthermore, many other festivals are considered favourable for the purchase of gold ornaments. Weddings are another occasion when gold ornaments are shopped to the hilt. The price, style and designs chosen depend on the socio-economic background and the traditional values of the particular community.
“Jewellery
takes people’s Minds off your wrinkles”
