Chuck's wife Sue let me scan a bundle of papers that her mother had purchased at a rummage sale years ago. She had kept these in a folder that was full of inspiration for her own designs. The folder was full of interesting slips of tracing paper that contained scale drawings of mostly rings, a few flatware items, letter openers, and pendants. The shear number of ring designs was staggering (I scanned them all). There were magazine clippings in with the drawings and most of them were from between 1900 - 1913. The gold and car prices will give you a perspective! As will the RISD program announcement!
Sue and I talked about how these drawings were most likely made for customers who wanted a piece of jewelry and how each piece would have been custom due to the lack of mass produced jewelry at the time. She commented that she still makes custom pieces as a jeweler but it's not like what it would have been in the 1900's. She also commented that a lot of people are melting down these old original pieces to get the gold value out of the piece. What a shame...
Anyway, thanks to Sue for letting me scan all of these. The first picture above is just one of about thirty.
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