wrote in message
...
In rec.crafts.jewelry on or about Sat, 26 Jan 2008 12:29:06 -0800 we
heard the sounds of a voice named "William Black"
crying out from afar, saying:

2. There's a big market for 24carat gold jewellery in India as well,
but,
as in China and Thailand, it's not for wearing, it's for hiding under the
bed and running away with when things get bad.


Oh jeez...and don't tell this stuff to my mother-in-law and many
sisters-in-law who still live in China and wear 24k gold jewelry.

Actually, during the Cultural Revolution, people sewed gold jewelry
and ingots into their clothing so they could run away with it (not a
bad idea for us here in the states lately.)

The point about the pure gold jewellery is that when you get stopped at the
border/roadblock the guys in the badly fitting fatigues will certainly steal
any bullion they find, but they might just leave your wife with her
jewellery, or at least some of it...

It's like experienced travelers in remote places tucking a couple of gold
sovereigns into the back of their wallet or sewn into their belt lining.

There are very few places in the world where two gold sovereigns won't get
you a taxi driver who'll take you to the nearest friendly consulate...

3. What royalty wears isn't actually anything to do with the real world.

I dare say they'd disagree.

I somehow doubt that.

The advantage of doing your training at the Central School of Jewellery in
Birmingham is that some of the visiting lecturers are the people who do this
stuff for royalty.

An excellent example is one I came across when I was doing the 'Advanced
Jewellery Making' course. The instructor was a 'Masonic jeweller', that
is, a
jeweller who makes insignia, and he was one of the best in the world.

He had been tasked with making the new collars and badges for three Garter
Knights who were to be appointed in 2005.

The gentleman who previously made these insignia had retired a year or so
previously and so someone had to find out how to make the things.

The moulds existed for the castings to make the basis for the jewellery but
my lecturer had to go to Buckingham Palace to look at and photograph an
extant example so that the various settings and fixings matched the earlier
examples.

This is not the sort of stuff anyone wears, never mind owns, in 'real
life'.

--
William Black


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.