Retro Sterling and Goldstone Brooch / Pendant

Jewelry : Vintage : Silver, Sterling

 

What a great looking piece this is! It has a retro design fashioned of sterling silver featuring a triangular shaped piece of goldstone. It can be worn as a pin or as a pendant. The back is marked 'Silver 925 Israel. It measures 2" x 1.5" at the wider end.

Goldstone is a type of synthetic glass made with copper or copper salts in the presence of a reducing flame. When the reduced goldstone melt cools, the copper remains in atomic isolation and precipitates into small crystalline clusters. The finished product can take a smooth polish and be carved into beads, figurines, or other artifacts suitable for semiprecious stone, and in fact goldstone is often mistaken or misrepresented as a natural material. The manufacturing process for goldstone was discovered in seventeenth-century Venice by the Miotti family. Folklore attributes the discovery and secret of goldstone to an unnamed Italian monastic order, giving rise to the alternate name "monk's gold" or "monkstone". Another name, "stellaria", is based on the starry internal reflections.

Item ID: 2573