Signet or Seal Pinky Ring with Couped Wild Boar in 18 Karat Rose Gold Circa 1900

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Signet or Seal Pinky Ring with Couped Wild Boar in 18 Karat Rose Gold Circa 1900

About the Item

This appealing little ring features a couped snaggle-toothed boar's head in profile, facing left, surrounded by a pair of branches. The design is devoid of quarters, partitions, mottos, mantles or any of the other heraldic doo-dads that make up a family crest, so this ring was probably intended to imitate a seal ring and the boar is there to embody the traditional heraldic virtues of bravery, command, control and fighting spirit. Unfortunately, we weren't able to dig up anything about the maker of this ring, whose mark is "B. S & Co." The purity mark -- "18 CT" -- is a bit more suggestive and a bit more confusing. The ring doesn't have an assay mark or a date mark, so it came from a country that didn't have very strict hallmarking requirements. That suggests the United States, but we don't know of any American goldsmiths ever using "carat" as the spelling for "karat." This spelling is more common in British Empire or Commonwealth countries, but most of these countries adopted some sort of formal hallmarking system by the early 1900s. Our theory is that this ring dates from 1900 or earlier, and was made in one of the hallmarking late bloomers that traditionally expressed gold purity in karats (spelled "carats") and not percentages. Possible candidates includes Canada, Australia and South Africa. The face of this ring is 13.3mm tall, tapering to 3.1mm in the back. The shank is 1.3mm thick. Currently a size 3.75, we will resize at no charge for full-price buyers. Note, however, that this ring was proportioned for smaller finger sizes; we don't recommend sizing up by more than three full sizes. If the ring is resized above 6.75, it is nonreturnable. With regard to the ring's condition, it's excellent, considering its (presumed) age because all surface scratches on the band and inside the ring have been removed with polishing. We noticed some tiny casting defects (pitting) on the inside of the ring that are original and permanent. We're also reluctant to get carried away polishing the face of the ring because we don't want to damage or soften the engraving, but these scratches are minor and not readily visible with the naked eye. Despite its small proportions, this ring is very solid, weighing in at a very respectable 7.4 grams of 18 karat (or for you 120+ year oldsters, "carat") gold. With regard to the gold color, it's not super-pink rose gold like we see in modern rose gold jewelry -- it's more like deep yellow gold with a coppery rose undertone. Yellow gold used to be alloyed with more copper than it is today, and rose gold, around since the beginning of the 19th century, was more rosy-brown than this ring, so it's possible this is just a very old yellow gold formulation.

Ring Size:
3.75 US, Resizable
Metal:
Gold,18k Gold,Rose Gold
Weight:
7.4 g
Style:
Late Victorian
Place of Origin:
Unknown
Period:
Early 20th Century
Date of Manufacture:
Circa 1900
Condition:
Polished. Minor losses. Some surface scratches and minor casting defects. Please refer to the narrative for more details.
Seller Location:
Sherman Oaks, CA
Reference Number:
Seller: FD03721stDibs: LU1673116146732