The pendant on the brown silk cord, overall view

Collection Monete Romane·Pendente

Silver pendant with Roman coin reproduced in bronze on four prongs, brown cord

Name: Silver pendant with Roman coin reproduced in bronze on four prongs, brown cord
Brand: Anna Gioielli
SKU: PA195AG
Price: 125.0 EUR
Availability: InStock

Nineteen millimeters and twenty-seven of coin, held by four claws and nothing else.

€125,00 PA195AG

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

The coin is bronze, dark, with the relief pulling towards copper where the light takes it, and it is not closed inside a setting: it is held by four silver claws, one to each quarter, folded over the edge. On it you can read a head in profile with a laurel crown, facing right, and around it runs a line of Latin letters still legible. The frame that runs behind the claws is hammer-beaten silver and has an irregular edge. The cord is brown silk, held above the pendant by a silver bead, and it ends in two end caps with an extension chain that lengthens the necklace.

Eight grams and forty-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 coin measures nineteen millimeters and twenty-seven across, and the necklace forty-six point five centimeters. The pendant and the end caps are rhodium-plated: over the silver there is a layer of rhodium that keeps oxidation away. The coin is a reproduction of a Roman coin; the company does not state which, and we do not add it. 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

8.45 gramsTotal weight mounted pendant

Metals: Silver 925‰ · bronze (coin)
Finish: Hammered frame · pendant and end pieces rhodium-plated
Dimensions: Pendant diameter 19.27 mm · necklace length 46.5 cm
Technique: Made entirely by hand in the company's studio: the frame hammer-beaten, the four claws closed cold over the edge of the coin, the pendant and end caps rhodium-plated, the silk cord fitted with an extension chain.

The pendant worn, resting below the throat

The frame in three-quarter view, with the four prongs closed over the edge of the coin

The small silver bead that holds the cord above the pendant

The bronze coin from the front: the laurel-crowned head and the letters along the edge

The silver end pieces and extension chain, at the clasp of the cord

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.
Rhodium plating: Rhodium is a metal of the platinum group and it is deposited on silver by electroplating, in a layer a few thousandths of a millimeter thick. It is not a varnish: it is metal on metal, and it serves to stop sulphidation — bare silver goes gray in air, rhodium-plated silver does not. The layer, though, is as thin as a breath, so the piece has to be degreased down to the last trace before the bath: where a fingerprint is left the rhodium does not take, and the spot that fails shows only afterwards, when the silver there begins to darken again on its own.

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