Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1877 — The Manufacture of Wedding-Rings In Birmingham, Eng. [ARTICLE]

The Manufacture of Wedding-Rings In Birmingham, Eng.

The manufacturers who actually confine themselves to.the making of weddingrings are comparatively few in number. It is an easy-going and pleasant trade, and so fine are the profits that all transactions are strictly for cash only. Birmingham makers supply mostly the wants of the United Kingdom and the British Colonies, but many European nations make their own matrimonial yokes. There are, in all, about twenty-four different makes of rings, and three qualities of gold. The Scotch and Irish people like usually a cheap quality; while in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the North of England heavy, costly rings are wanted. Wedding-rings are of two orders—the “ round” and the broad sort —in which the band of gold is flat and displayed. There is thus a little fashion, even in these simple matters, and in different parts of England broad or round rings are in vogue. Popular taste is in favor of broad rings, as the most showy, but round rings for very “ swell” people. The quality of the wedding-ring must be of irreproachable “ carat,” and it may happen that a few sovereigns find their way into the melting pot. At the manufactory I inspected, I learnt that a bar of gold of the value of £6OO lasted some five or six days, and was estimated to make from 90 to 100 dozens of rings. On the average, some 60 or 70 dozens of rings are sent away from here every week. Think of this awful fact, dear ladies, that every nng represents one marriage! Truly a wholesale making of fetters that bind more closely than the prison chains. As much confidence must be placed in the workmen, old and trusty servants are employed; and for them work is always found, if the demand be great or small. Christmas is a tremendous time for weddings, and the makers work “ double tides" for some three weeks previously, sometimes toiling nearly all night. Easter and Whitsuntide are also favored periods for the commission of matrimony, but Christmas is best loved of all. Tolerably even though the trade is, slack seasons affect it; then, of course, prudent men do not rush headlong into matrimony. The prices of rings range from a few shillings to several pounds. There are terribly vulgar brides who will have moat massive ana costly rings, fearful to behold; and occasionally opulent male snobs take a fancy to have a plain gold ring of appalling proportions, as an instance, doubtless, of pareenu success and wealth. The fashionable ring is a neat thing of three to four pennyweights. Apart from the trade orders there are many curious private customers who come to the manufactory for the one single gold circlet that is to mark one of this life’s great contracts. Often the workinggirl—soon to be a bride—buys her own ' ring herself, and no matter how poor or Eshe may be, the ring shall be of ted quality. A slight return of ir “ luck money,” on the purchase to be productive of good, and superstitions prevail among the customers. One bride-elect came arfully with her purchase to have langed. The ring was accursed, been tried on by some thoughtless the bride had worn it. The omen d to be indicative of the worst Many, indeed, are the strange fanmected with this magic circle. > girl who has scraped up her little to buy an elaborate ring, will it out of sheer jealousy for a heav-

let one, if some companion bride-elect has made a more massive purchase. Shall we enter the magic laboratory wherein pledges matrimonial are confectioned? Truly an alchemist’s study. A small, dingy workshop, fitted with a few benches for some half-dozen workpeo pie, and the ordinary rotary polishing wheels, blow-pipes, reflecting glass bottles, and so on. Here on the floor to the melting furnace; through a small aperture the gold bar or bag or sly sovereigns to dropped into the melting-pot. The gold, having been duly melted, to taken to the mill to be rolled. It to then annealed. By this time the precious metal to as black as sheet iron, and the raw material of weuding-rings, as it lies in the workshop, resembles nothing so much as sections of nail-rod iron, or pieces of flattened telegraph wires. Gold, indeed, not if we know. This nail-rod gold has now to be drawn through a machine something after the wire-drawing principle. An end of a black gold rod to made fast in the machine, which to then started, and away goes the bar through the machine, and comes out twisting tightly on the drum of the machine like a rope round a windlass. It to drawn round or flat as may be required, and appears, after the highly-attenuating process, its own natural color, the impurities of the annealing having been rubbed off. The links that are to lead to—let us hopemuch “ linked sweetness,” having been thus "long drawn out” themselves, are cut into short strips of the length of wed-ding-rings of all sizes, and sent to receive the official stamp, by which internal cabalistic design unbelievers know that the articles are “ hall-marked,” and so, above suspicion. The embryo rings now present a rough appearance, and are of a dull, yellow tint. The remaining processes are very simple. The little sections are hammered roughly round, and the ends joined, then beaten into the comSlete circle, and so, rough, coarse and ull, are handed over to the gifted being who to to produce the last magical change, and transform the dull, brassy-looking circlet into the trim, neat, shining symbol of wedlock, all ready for the nervous digit of the tremulous bride. The ring is fixed in the revolving wheel, away goes the said wheel at a good speed, the polishing instruments—of hard stone —are deftly applied, and, hey, presto! soon the wheel stops, and out comes the ring as bright and clean as a new pin. In this almost primitively simple workshop these half-dozen workpeople turn out weekly a goodly number of rings. Of a truth, the making them to as simple as may be. The artisans are checked at various stages by the weight of gold given out to them. A. certain quantity of gold to weighed out, and should produce so many strips through the drawing machine. At different stages of manufacture the materials are weighed, and the final result should be so many manufactured rings. A special tub is provided for the workpeople to wash their hands in on leaving work, and this tub yields auriferous harvests. The show-rooms of the wedding-ring maker are simple in the extreme. One small office suffices, and a couple of dolls’ chests of drawers contain the samples of hto quaint trade. To my fancy It to the most charming business, so clean, so easy and—most potent of all facts —so strictly on the " cash principle.” When we remember the enormous credits common to the jewelry trade in general, this “trade rule” to remarkable, especially as the whole process of making and finishing the wedding ring to so very simple. But it is, I believe, religiously adhered to. — Birmingham Daily Mail.