Elizabethan Antique Jewelry Craftsmanship vs. Modern Jewelry Craftsmanship

While the world has advanced a great deal over the last several hundred years, antique jewelry still reflects a level of craftsmanship that rivals that of the best jewelers of this age. In fact, researchers are now convinced that jewelry manufacturers of the 1600s used technology and manufacturing methods that would rival those used by some of the best known jewelers of our age.

A team of Birmingham City University researchers recently analyzed a large collection of Elizabethan antique jewelry dating back to the 1600s to better understand how it was designed and created. They were surprised to find that the jewelers of this time period used very advanced technologies to create intricate bracelets, watches, pendants and gemstone rings. In fact, a Ferlite watch dating back to this time period is said to be so advanced that it is equivalent to being “the iPod of its day”.

While researchers have been able to discover some of the many processes used by antique jewelers when creating their masterpieces, some of the exact manufacturing details and technologies have been lost over the years. However, researchers are continuing to study this large jewelry collection and, using their vast experience along with modern CAD technology, are learning more and more about how these unique jewelry items were created.

While the future is always full of possibilities and new inventions, there is much that can be learned from the past. While the manufacturers of Elizabethan and Jacobean jewelry lived over four centuries ago, there is much that we can learn from them when it comes to creating out of the ordinary jewelry from gold, silver, bronze and precious stones. The styling and manufacturing of jewelry items is intricate beyond belief and could only have been made using technology that rivals that of our present age.