100 years of grief in a single mourning ring assortment.

Mourning rings and mourning jewellery are a distinct segment merchandise for jewellery collectors: they’re stunning however so intimate that not all collectors are drawn to amass them. Personally, I discover mourning rings fascinating. I believe there’s one thing fantastic about the concept that an ideal loss that may be memorialized with a memento that you may put on everytime you need to consider them.

However this publish isn’t about mourning rings generally – this publish is to take a look at one really distinctive assortment of mourning rings that’s headed for public sale in Fellows September 30th Fine Jewellery Sale.

This remarkable collection of Georgian and William IV gold and enamel mourning rings spans 100 years.

One of the vital intensive mourning collections to ever be offered within the UK, this assortment contains sixty-three (!!) Georgian and William IV mourning rings. The rings had been collected by Elizabeth Snaith (1805-1890) within the nineteenth century and the present proprietor is a descendant of the Snaith Household. The gathering has by no means has by no means been offered earlier than.

Each ring within the assortment is gold with enamel with one skeleton band (pictured above within the decrease proper hand nook of the picture).

The gathering contains rings memorializing fifty distinct people and has been extensively researched. The itemizing contains documentation assembled by the collector, together with the names on the rings, their household connections, historical past for among the extra notable names, and even intensive household timber for among the households represented. There’s extra info in the auction listing, together with images of among the documentation. It’s really unbelievable.

This incredible collection of mourning rings spans 100 years

Right here’s just a little extra background from Fellows:

The giving and sporting of mourning rings occurred broadly within the interval to the late nineteenth century. Many testator offering funds of their wills to necessary benefactors for the acquisition of a hoop to be worn through the interval of mourning. Such a benefaction was an honour and would have been obtained with delight and the rings would have been worn with nice respect. We observe that lots of the named individuals that happen on this assortment left wills that gained probate on the Prerogative Courtroom of Canterbury, and their wills comprise particulars of those bequests.”

For those who’ve ever tried to purchase a mourning ring you perceive how scarce and coveted they’re and the way exceptional it’s that this assortment has SIXTY THREE of all of them collectively! It blows my thoughts greater than just a little bit.

I’m so glad that these mourning rings made their approach into the arms of a collector who handled them with respect and preserved them so superbly. I hope whoever is the following proprietor of this standout assortment will safeguard it simply as rigorously.

This extraordinary assortment goes up on the market on September thirtieth, so make sure you go check out the auction listing at Fellows earlier than then. And if you happen to’re within the UK and determine to go see the gathering, please inform it good day for me.