700 yr old French Coin Pendant Finished!!!

700 yr old French Coin Pendant Finished!!!
Originally uploaded by bcyrjewelry

I have been working on the project for far longer than I anticipated. Once I got into it, it went along fairly nicely. But I was simply frozen with fear for a long time and felt like I had something that was in no way replaceable.

Thanks to my dear friend Sophie - she suggested the solution I was looking for. Though I don't remember exactly what was said - the basic idea is hers! I used 3 layers - the middle layer was the same thickness as the thickest part of the coin - which was 21g - most of the coin was much less than that, but I didn't want to be riveting the two sandwich pieces and putting pressure on any part of the coin. I also didn't want to be working on the metal of the pendant after it was all riveted together. So for me, getting the outer edges to all be perfectly the same was a little challenging at first. The rubber cement would only last for so long - I think the heat was making it melt?! Is that possible? Or maybe just the pressure of me holding it so tightly was causing the slices to slip. Once I got the outer shape close - enough, I used some bent 'rivets' to hold the 3 slices just right as a ground and sanded and filed away. Why you ask didn't I just cut all three out at the same time? Well... thats a good question. And I don't know that I have a good answer. If I did it all over again, I probably would have done some things differently.

But, I am very happy with how it turned out. The coin is somewhat protected as it won't lay against the skin in either direction. It is reversible, so the back and the front are equally 'open'. The metal has a nice old feel to it, w/o competing too much with the coin. I also worked on having the overall shape be fairly organic and look as if it could have possibly been around for awhile too. And because of the cold connections, the coin could at some point be taken out and the setting redone with no harm to the coin. Though as another friend mentioned - if it has lasted for 700 years, its probably pretty tough!

Oh and why three rivets? The father, the son and the holy spirit of course! I figured the old French monk would have wanted it that way. And to give further credit where credit is due - another friend mentioned I should add further significance to the piece by choosing an number of rivets that would have meant something. And for a small pendant, this seemed the most logical.

So thats it. Its finished. And I honestly don't think I could be any happier with it! A few more photos can be seen on flickr.