Gold ring help please.

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Northeast

Northeast

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Evening all.

A friend of mine found this ring about 12 months ago in the Beechworth region of Victoria.

I am going to put it up in the For Sale section here for him at some stage but he wants to find out a little more about it if he can.

It has a nice flower pattern around the outside but then has a little nugget plonked in the middle of it - even has some quartz for good measure.

Has a Maker's Mark of WHE but I am unable to find anything in an extremely long list of marks.

Due to the area found and the nugget on the top he is guessing it was lost sometime between 1860 and 1920. Possibly made in Beechworth but could really have been made anywhere and brought to the region.

He has a testing kit and it reads as greater than 22K. 9.26 grams in weight.

Would anybody be able to assist with some knowledge re: the Maker's Mark or any other provenance?

1630756418_mercer_s_ring_1.jpg


1630756436_mercer_s_ring_on_scale.jpg


1630756459_ring_close_up.jpg


1630756483_ring_makers_mark.jpg
 
Might be William Herbert Eldridge jewellery?

WILLIAM HERBERT ELDRIDGE 1867-1944
William Herbert Eldridge was born at Worthing, Sussex, England the son of Amos Eldridge, a watchmaker & jeweller and Emily Elizabeth Quaife. Amos was born on 21 Mar 1844 at Ewhurst the son of William Eldridge, a labourer and Hannah Sellman.

The 1871 English census shows William aged 4 at 13 South Street Worthing, Sussex with his parents Amos, a watchmaker and jeweller age 27 born Ewhurst and Elizabeth (sic) age 26 born Battle, and his siblings Sabina age 7 born Battle, Ed age 6 born Southbro Kent, and Wm age 4, Maud age 1 and an unnamed male baby age 1m all born at Worthing.

The 1881 English census shows William as a 13 year old at 28 South Street Worthing, Sussex with his parents Amos, a jeweller age 37 born Battle and Emily age 36 born Battle, and his siblings Sabina age 17 and Edward age 15 both born at Tunbridge Wells and Maud age 10, Claud age 9, Violet age 6, Daisy age 4 and Clive age 2 all born at Worthing, Sussex.

William Herbert migrated to Australia as he married Mary Ann Hall at All Saints Church of England St Kilda Victoria on 27 Jan 1890. He was a storekeeper, born in Worthing, Sussex, England, the son of Amos Eldridge, a Jeweller, and Emily Elizabeth Quaife. Mary was born in 1863, the daughter of George Hall and Sarah Ann Fagan. Their first child was born at Carlton with the remainder at Essendon.

Mary Ann died at Mont Park in 1943 and was shown as aged 76. An Inquest was held on 18 Jun 1943 and her cause of death found to be cardio vascular degeneration. William died at Bendigo in 1944 aged 78.
(Source:http://members.iinet.net.au/~rgkje/eldridge/whe.html)
 
Maybe take it to the museum so they can have a looksee... be worth more to them if it is a part of history (just a thought)
 
Thanks for the research Phil. I see that Williams father was the jeweller and he was a storekeeper once in Australia. I suppose he could have also dabbled in some jewelling.

Thanks Grubstake. Yes, it very well could be a Tudor rose. Is there then some special element if it is a Tudor rose? Surely it is not royal or anything? :eek:

Thanks Silver. The friend that found it does intend to take it to a museum but with lockdown that isnt happening. I also wondered if museums would even have jewellery specialists there? I thought maybe an antique jeweller?

I started down the rabbit hole of those links and then their links and then their links - thanks Silver, I think they are going to come in very handy.

Cash Brown at the MADE museum in Ballarat might be the first port of call.

:Y:
 
Northeast said:
Thanks Grubstake. Yes, it very well could be a Tudor rose. Is there then some special element if it is a Tudor rose? Surely it is not royal or anything? :eek:
Click to expand...

If it is a Tudor rose, my guess would be that its significance is linked to a family origin in a particular UK city or county. But I guess it may be a symbol indicating English origin more generally, rather than Welsh (leek), Scottish (thistle), Irish (shamrock), etc.
 
Yeah, not sure if auctions are allowed on here any more. But would certainly give a good indication of its 'value'.

AF - I've got no idea but it seems like a weird thing to do. Your idea of it replacing a lost stone might be right on the money. Maybe it is the first gold nugget some migrant found in Australia or the first they found on the Beechworth goldfields. It is not something I've ever seen before - plonking a nugget on top of a ring. :goldnugget:
 
What an interesting little ring!

If it doesn't have any other marks on it apart from the WHE, then it wasn't put through an assay office to be hallmarked, and that's often where the Markers Mark is registered for us to find it online today.

I didn't have any luck finding WHE anywhere, which suggests to me that it was possibly made here before access to a government assay office was available to them to properly hallmark and register it, that they have to do by law if they were selling it. That also suggests it was possibly made by the person who wore it, or gave it to their sweetheart to wear, and was never up for sale.

I think that is potentially quite an old ring, and your mate should definitely have a museum or antiques jeweller check it out.

Keep us informed on this story please. I'd like to know the outcome! :)

Cheers,
Megsy
 
Evening all,

Had a response from Cash Brown re: the ring.

Wasn't able to help specifically but was able to provide some good leads. Hopefully able to do some further research/reading later in the week.

I have copied Cash's email in full as there are some links included that may be useful to others.

Very nice of Cash to reply at all let alone providing some good info :Y:

Cheers, N.E.

"Thank you for getting in touch

Each makers mark is can be traceable, but with hard work and luck and this gives you the area where the maker was active and the years. It is an inexact science though.

You can look up these initials in literature dedicated to the topic but there is nothing online as its a pretty niche area.

See:

https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2590479

this is the main book we used.

We have found makers marks not listed in the literature but surmised their identity through advertisements placed in newspapers of the day these can be searched through Trove.

W.H.E could be Wagner Hogarth Erichson for example (I made this up but they are real names of jewellers at the time)

I think if you write to the Australiana Society, someone there may put up their hand to help you I unfortunately have no answers other than that the ring was probably cast therefore an off the shelf piece which was commonly available for miners to then have their nugget soldered to the ring. It was the man bling of the day.

This ring is therefore probably later 19th or early 20th century as the pre made ones didnt come about until the second rushes from the 1870s onwards. The initials may be from an overseas manufacturer too which would have wholesaled the rings to local jewellers. This would make it extra hard to track.

If it was cast locally, then the initials should be traceable as not many makers did this.

Here is the link to the catalogue we made which is the most up to date publication on the topic of Goldfields Jewellery there is.

https://issuu.com/cashbrown/docs/19_c_bling_goldfields_jewellery

Trevor Hancock was the main person to help identify things if you can track him down he may want to help, he is a jewellery dealer.

You will probably need some super sleuth skills!

Good luck and let me know how you go am sorry I cant be of much assistance.

Best

Cash
 
Arvo all,

This was all done and dusted a few months ago but forgot to come back and update.

My friend who found it had originally been happy to get gold value (about $800) and then thought that it was maybe worth $1000. I said that it is likely worth more than that so he said if I would research more and get more then he would give me a cut of the extra.

So, from the email above, I finally got onto Trevor Hancock and asked re: if he would help with some ID, any info he may have on the marks, etc.

Essentially, he did not know exactly where, by who or when it was made but feels it was likely Melbourne and mid-late 1800's. He also offered to buy it for $2,400. He said he was putting together a little collection for an upcoming thesis or presentation or something. He is also an ex antique dealer - used to have a shop in Perth. A link to a story about him winding up the shop is here https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=359559398064957 Sorry if you don't do Farcebook.

Now, if he was offering us $2,400 it is likely worth more than that but Old Mate was ecstatic with the price and us amateurs would be fluffing our way through trying to sell something like this properly, so he accepted the offer :money: :goldnugget: :) :beer:

Old mate was happy and I was bloody happy as he gave me a very favourable share of the extra funds and that pretty much paid for a tow bar on the ute which was well overdue - noice! :100:

Anyway, that's the way the story ended ;)
 

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