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Photoessay: Ametrine

21/11/2018

 
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Aimless, compulsive rock-fancying runs in my family and I am personally like a medieval demon when confronted with a mineralogically interesting beach; each new kind of pebble must be examined until a fugue state distracts me from any general perpetration of evil.  Je suis ce que je suis. 

Holidays in SE Asia during the 80s always featured the attentions of infinitely patient and utterly inexorable gem hawkers; they would slither out of nowhere to squat down on the beach beside visiting marks and unpack their inventory. 

​Out of their bundles of fraying white cotton would emerge surprisingly dark alluvial sapphires in a half-dozen colours, still blind and uncut; enormous, flamboyant aquamarines like Waterford crystal, and various other of the tiny effulgent splendours gouged, flushed and blasted from the guts of the region. 
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Even as a child I was somehow cognisant of the half-sinister nature of their origins.  It flickered in their purveyors’ breezy mendacity, the smiling lies about where all this stuff came from, their insistence upon the legitimacy of their strangely furtive trade etc. etc. and in the flame of the stones themselves.  To my eye, their vacuous lustre spoke of nothing good. 

​I think Dad felt the same since I don’t remember him buying much, despite the obvious quality of the pieces offered to a Phuket punter back in the day.

This is fundamentally where my resistance to retail gems stems from, a disinclination underscored by more recent revelations about the hideous social and environmental price of precious stones.  I think I’ve only ever bought amber ‘new’ and that shit generally moved beyond easy affordability for plebeians a long time ago. 
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Half an hour of research on the subject should prompt you to ask yourself if you’re still in the market for Harry Winston bling or Burmese jade.  All that squalid provenance prompts a hard no from me.
There is also the intractable problem of funds available vis-á-vis physical scale; anything under 5 carats might as well be glitter dust against my heroic slash Clydesdale-eque proportions.  Size matters, sadly.

So what is a man-handed, ethically-minded lady of limited resources to do?  Go without jewellery?  That is a monstrous proposition. I source my glamour by winkling through the job lots, buyer’s remorse, misattributions and hood-rat shit on auction sites. 
​And that is how I came across the 15 carats of stunning Bolivian brilliance that is this ametrine.  
​It twinkled its way into my heart in the auction pics and did not disappoint once it had plopped into my hands and all for sub-$50. 
 This piece hails from a watchmaker's estate and apparently sat in his shop window, casually slaying unwary basics with its understated subtlety and modest proportions.  It's like we were made for each other.

What in the ever-living fuck is an ametrine, I hear you gasp.  I didn’t know either.  It sounded... mysterious.  Chimeric.  Synthetic, even.  The internet informs us that s
tructurally speaking, ametrine is a naturally bicoloured variant of quartz, combining the purple of amethyst and the yellow of citrine in one stone where the composition shifts from the former to the latter.  It is hard, coming in at Mohs 7, which makes it practical, and came historically from only one locale; the Anahí mine, named for a high-born Ayoreo lady in the remote Bolivian Pantanál region.  I recommend this great piece in gia.edu on the mineral and region if you have some idle moments.
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All brokearseness aside, there is a definite case for opting for obscure gems of single or limited derivation.  It's generally easier to decide if you can stomach the supply chain; their procurement tends not to attract the most ruthless traders, spark conflicts or devastate entire regions and cultures.  And there is a consensus that many are currently undervalued.  I concur, having lived long enough to see a number of sources played out and formerly humble materials graduate into conspicuous value in the public consciousness.  Padparadscha sapphires used to be cheap as chips on those ye olde Thai beaches, simply because everyone wanted Princess Di blue; now it’ll cost you your left tit for a half-decent one (yes I missed that particular boat and am incredibly bitter).  My ametrine would retail for around $250 as far as I can tell and that’s still a bargain, when bang-for-buck size/interest etc. are considered.

It is a beautiful thing in both loud and subtle ways.  The refraction is ridiculous due to the high clarity, incredibly bright polish and outrageously buxom cut with its fat arse and puffy disco ball facets.  The colour shift runs vertically, like strokes of lightning slashing down into the cellar of the stone, yellow bands soaking through the bright mauve and turning it a rosey golden pink from many angles.

I think I’ll put it in a ring, a thick band with some sort of serpentine hammered finish.  Will blog when can afford.
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A Scandinavian Modernist Amber and Silver ring

4/12/2014

 
Do you brace as though for traumatic impact when your male partner buys you jewellery?  I am one of those harpies, wielding scathing judgement like an emasculating scythe.  But it's hardly an autogenic condition now, is it?  The taste-based selection of highly personal items is just one of those fields of specific masculine incompetence that chafe me like underwear with nasty lace.  It is what it is.
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After vacillating over crap photos of this ring on an auction site a year ago I decided not to battle hipsters into three figures and had resolved, rather bitterly, to let it go, telling myself I didn't really like it anyway.  On coming back from a walk the Lovely R announced he'd won it for me, smiling fit to burst.  But do we ever want anything less than just after we've convinced ourselves that some other d-bag's going to outbid us for it?  So I was sort of mad at him for spending the money and rolled my eyes and stomped away.  The thing turned up about 24 hours later and I was forced to admit he'd picked a winner.  It's well-marked and I think we did look up the maker, but I forget who it was now. 
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I love amber.  This cube of Cretaceous goodness was chosen with care and glows like flakes of shellac encased in golden syrup; the flanged mount is secured with an internal post which is amazingly invisible except in dramatic backlight, so the square appears to perch inside the claws.
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The tapered band is kewlness too, never catching on anything even though it sits so high on the finger.  That's what good design is all about; the shit that works so well it's hardly ever noticed.  We both love this piece.  I'm glad I was overruled.

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Vintage Dior Collar Necklace & Earrings (demi-parure), 1961;  for sale to the discerning.

17/10/2014

 
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As a rule, we prefer costume and vintage jewellery to most 'precious' modern junk.  Why?  Oh I don't know... little things like design, flavour, quality, integrity, individuality... basically everything missing from modern production.  And vintage pieces from iconic design houses like Dior are the best of the best.  They took the postwar austerity lemon and made spectacular lemonade with these in-your-face Jackie-O sets, intended for on-trend debutantes, fashion slaves and upscale lunching ladies, reinterpreting current and historical influences to produce jewellery that must have looked even more startling then than it does now.
Establishmentarians were disapproving of this 20thC supremacy of design for its own sake and the associated use of 'commonplace' materials to construct items once so thoroughly steeped in traditional notions of status and personal wealth.  So it was left to daredevils and fashionistas to initially flout convention with these pieces, which were even then expensive, often painstakingly constructed and difficult to source.  

Christian Dior died in 1957, ten years after ushering in his fateful 'New Look' and it was his protege Yves Saint-Laurent who took over the house, until his own game-changing departure in '61- this collar's year of manufacture.  

Further research would illuminate exactly which one of these gentlemen was responsible for this piece but Dior bijoux were manufactured, beginning in 1955, by Henkel and Grosse, who produced four batches a year for Dior and also made jewellery for rival luminaries Schiaparelli and Lanvin.  
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Henkel and Grosse were taken over by Dior 2006.  One Hundred Years of Passion for Grosse and Bijoux Christian Dior: Henkel & Grosse Jewellery (2010, Vivienne Becker) details that outfit's production and collaborations.

As with so many things, by the time they became perfectly acceptable to the general herd, both the inspiration and production methods behind them had begun a slide toward obsolescence in the face of sloppy incoming hippiedom and the demise of taste in general.  Luckily, a thing of beauty lasts forever, or something like that.  If only in principle, because these delicious demi-parures have largely disappeared into private and institutional collections and a quick poke around the internet will give you an idea of just how scarce they've become on the open market.  We sold another amethyst glass set a couple of years back through a boutique in the States and it was snapped up almost immediately.  
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< This one is date stamped (both necklace and earrings) in its original box and comes with a lovely letter from the previous owner, who wore the set a grand total of once in her fifty + years of stewardship.  At 83, she decided it was time for this set to see a little bit more of the world, which is fair enough.  
In this intrepid spirit, we offer it for sale to interested parties @ RICE & BEANS VINTAGE
Please enquire onsite via 'Contact' for an ETA.
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The picture above is flashed to give you an idea of the play of colour in this incredible collar.  While the largest crystal elements are a pure azure blue, the smaller ones exhibit a lustre that flashes in shades of rose gold, violet and subtle pheasant-olive and bronze.  The complex, detailed metal structure is gold-toned and secured with a garland-style bead loop to the rear of the piece.  The earrings are clip-on and are a perfect match.  Condition-wise, I would rate this piece as near to mint as is possible for a vintage item to be; there are no bead losses or chipping, no corrosion or gold-tone scaling.  The box is in excellent condition, with slight foxing and storage scuffs being the only indication of age.
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My Big Red Bakelite Bead Necklace.  Or Catalin.  Cherry Amber. Whatever.

9/9/2014

 
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They're not amber, of course, despite a lot of insistence to the contrary by people who should know better.  These particular beads are catalin, a slightly translucent and marbled form of bakelite, which is a phenolic plastic formulated in the early 20th C, famed for its endless commercial, industrial and aesthetic applications and pumped out until it was superseded by the 'modern' plastics we know and loathe today, post-WW2.

True organic amber looks, weighs, smells and feels so different to bakelite that their strictly superficial resemblance becomes clear when they are handled side by side.  If you're in the market, it behoves you to familiarise yourself with both these materials and a few related substances before investing.

There are tonnes of fake (often Chinese) modern resin out there and a lot of unscrupulous traders waiting to relieve you of your $$$ in exchange for it.  Some dealers are genuinely ignorant of that but many are preying on your naivety.  Be aware too that there are contemporary artists who repurpose old bakelite from dead stock blanks and parted-out radios etc, fashioning it into new pieces; that's a great use of a lovely material, but it does mean that not every awesome item out there is a vintage one, strictly speaking.  You might not care and I don't, really.  A cool thing is a cool thing, regardless of age.
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A nice lady rushed out of a boutique about a month ago to stop me on the street and inform me that my 'beautiful red amber' was worth a fortune overseas and inquiring as to where I'd found it.  As it was the gratification of a very long-standing ambition, I remember buying these glossy beauties like it was yesterday- at an auction.  They were in the sale and I scored them for $50+ buyer premium, which was a stone cold bargain, even fifteen years ago.  Good times.

In the nineties American collectors on holiday in New Zealand bought up most if not all our early plastic and decent Victorian jewellery.  Nowdays you'd be lucky to see a piece like this in a specialist vintage jewellers, let alone a general sale or charity shop, where they did once dwell.  Temps perdu, etc.
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But it's also cool to actually get what you're paying for when it comes to old pieces.  Here's a few of the tips I use to judge and ID early plastic.  Perhaps most important is the disciplined banishment of wishful thinking.  When you're panting over something on the internet, your wanting it to be vintage or bakelite won't make it so.  Does the piece seem too good to be true?  Then it probably is.  The ground's been gone over pretty thoroughly by sharper eyes than yours or mine and these days you have to get really, really lucky to find something genuine that's fresh to the market.  Sad but true.

In my experience, large beads like this have almost always been shaped or at least finished on a lathe after being cut from long sausage blanks.  Even strings on their original knotting can sport beads of slightly differing profiles and dimensions; this can also mean that the string has been shortened at some stage in the process of natural attrition.  I don't find this objectionable but that's down to personal preference. 
In the pic below right you might be able to see the faint matte banding in the butt-end section of the second largest bead, demonstrating where it was machined.  New beads don't have this tell-tale, buffed-then-worn texture.  Nor do they have the unfakable compliment of nicks, dings, scratches and scuffs that tell of genuine usage.  The colours tend to be too bright and clean, possibly because the murky, almost sinister oxblood red you see here is partly the product of chemical change in the ageing material.  And because they're rarely hand-finished, Chinese resin tends to be too-perfectly symmetrical as per modern mass production techniques and often carries moulding seams that haven't been buffed back.  Valuable and genuinely old strings are sometimes polished to a smoother finish by well-meaning traders, but this eliminates often-beautiful patina and causes confusion, so it's not a practise I support personally.  

Most early plastics have their own distinctive smell when rubbed and warmed between your hands (except lucite- that's plexiglas/acrylic which doesn't have a pronounced odour) so unless you're seriously olfactorily declined, there's no need to stick hot pins in the stuff or carry around testing chemicals etc.  Bakelite/catalin smells of formaldehyde when warmed thusly; like a dentist's clinic or old paint solvents- vaguely sinister, sickly and old.  (Don't let this put you off.  It only arises with vigorous rubbing and not in the course of normal wear.)  You shouldn't have to try too hard to raise it, though; if you're not getting the smell in less than say, ten seconds of rubbing and warming, be suspicious.
Bakelite is hard but not that hard; see how I've strung it lazily with glass seed beads as spacers?  Don't do that.  The glass will eventually wear into the softer plastic.  Get them knotted or find some spacers of a similar, nonreactive material. Speaking of reactivity- store your beads in a cool shady place away from anything that might degrade them like heat, sunlight, perfume and hair products.  
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Anything aerosol is highly likely to be antagonistic to your precious plastic (and amber); I make putting on my jewellery the last step in the lengthy process of achieving maximum beauté, and never wear perfume on my neck.  Abusing bakelite with solvents and sunlight will eventually result in chemical decomposition.  You'll see surface crazing first, and if you catch that quickly you might be able to have it polished off, but once the internal cracks set in, it's dunzo, unfortunately.  It's important to quarantine all 'sick' bakelite and celluloid so the fumes they release as they break down don't go on to make neighbouring pieces unstable... apparently.  I've never observed this process but I've seen a few fried beads in my time; they're ugly, manky suckers, to be sure, and I wouldn't dream of exposing them to my healthier lovelies.  You're not supposed to store vintage plastics in a container made from modern plastics either, though this sounds a bit apocryphal to moi.

One of the most pleasing physical aspects of bakelite in my opinion is the distinctive sound the beads make as they clack against one another.  They have a voice all their own and say kunk instead of the pissy little kink of lesser materials impacting each other.  Bakelite is the bear of the vintage plastic kingdom.  I wear it with pride.
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