The pendant on the black silk cord, overall view

Collection Monete Romane·Pendente

Hammered silver cushion pendant with a bronze replica Roman coin

Twenty-three millimeters of hammer-beaten frame around a bronze disc.

€120,00 PA194AG

Drawn and built by hand at the bench, in Tosi.

The frame is a four-sided cushion with beveled corners, worn from the point, and the edge is hammer-beaten all the way round: the facets left by the blows run along the four sides and can be counted with the naked eye. Inside, a smooth silver circle acts as a rim and grips the coin at its edge; the coin is bronze and sits lower than the frame. On it you can read a head in profile with a helmet, facing right, and the relief is gilded where the light takes it and dark in the recesses. Turning the pendant over there is the other face of the coin, with a relief in lines. The black silk cord passes through a small ring at the upper point and rises to a silver bead.

Seven grams and seventy-five is the stated weight of the mounted pendant, between the silver frame at nine hundred and twenty-five thousandths and the bronze disc; the end caps and the extension chain are silver too. The pendant measures twenty-three millimeters across and the necklace forty-seven centimeters. It has the same cushion outline and the same width as its diamond-set brother, but here the frame is hammer-beaten and the coin is bronze rather than silver: they are the two ways the same shape changes its face. This too is a reproduction of a Roman coin, and which one the company does not state. It arrives in its gift box.

The material

Weights and carats as the workshop declares them.

Silver 925‰ — frame, end caps and extension chain
Bronze coin
7.75 gramsTotal weight mounted pendant
Metals
Silver 925‰ · bronze (coin)
Finish
Hammered frame, polished rim
Dimensions
Pendant width 23 mm · necklace length 47 cm
Technique
Made entirely by hand in the company's studio: the frame shaped into a cushion and hammer-beaten around the edge, the polished rim closed over the edge of the coin, the silk cord fitted with silver end caps and extension chain.
The bronze coin inside the cushion frame, on the marble
The same side shot from another angle
The other side of the coin, with the relief of lines
The reverse close up, resting on the marble
The frame close up: the hammer marks along the edge of the cushion
The pendant tilted, with the thickness of the hammered frame
The pendant hanging, with the silver bead that holds the cord
The pendant hanging, shot closer up
The pendant worn, resting below the throat
The cord laid flat, with the end caps and the extension chain
The whole necklace seen from above
The pendant edge-on, with the rim of the frame in view

How it is made

The words of the trade, one by one, explained to those who do not know them.

Reproduced Roman coin
The coin is not ancient: it is the reproduction of a Roman coin, made in bronze or in silver depending on the piece. What is reproduced is a low relief — a head in profile, a few letters along the edge — and in a low relief a tenth of a millimeter is all the difference between a profile that reads and a smudge. The disc that comes out is not a flat one: it is higher at the center than at the edge, and the edge itself is not an exact circle. That is what decides the mount. The frame closes on the edge, where the metal is steadier and where there is no design to cover, and it is tightened cold — a flame passed over the field of the coin would flatten the very relief it is being mounted for, and a crushed relief does not rise again.
Hammered frame
The frame is beaten with a hammer once it is already shaped, and every blow leaves a crooked facet that catches the light on its own account. There is no design to follow: you keep the rhythm and stop before the edge thins, because beaten metal spreads and gives way exactly where it has been struck most often. That is why no two frames ever come out identical, and why the last blow is decided by looking, not by counting.

I don't look at what others are doing: I would rather create in my own style. That is what makes our jewelry recognizable.

Fabio Gori — Anna Gioielli, Tosi

Made for you

Every piece leaves the bench made to order: sizes and details are agreed before the work begins.

The goldsmith's workshop is also the place where made-to-measure jewellery is created and family pieces are restored: if you have an idea, or something you want brought back to how it was, that is where it starts.

Ask for a made-to-measure piece
Made by
Anna Gioielli

A goldsmith's workshop in Tosi, on the slopes of the Pratomagno: Anna opened it in 1988, her sons Fabio and Francesco carry it on. Piercing, repoussé, chasing and burin engraving — the Florentine school, with the workshop in full view of the shop.

All the creations by Anna Gioielli

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