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February 2015
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FEBRUARY 2015
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JEWELRY
SHOWCASE
MAGAZINE.COM
S
o ... it’s Latin. It’s derived from
Old French. In today’s French it’s
Jumelle (feminine version). And
in English ... ah yes ... well ... we’re
in a country where--I once read--the
language has more words in it than any
other language in the modern world. To
wit: English. And in English it’s “Twin”.
And from the Latin we come to the
name of an interesting ring with an
interesting history. The Gimmel Ring.
Extrapolate a tad and you can see the
derivation. It dates back to the 16th or
17th century. It was also known as a
Puzzle Ring. A 17th century poet by the
name of John Dryden made reference to
it
in a piece entitled Don Sebastian which-
-at the time--received high literary
praises. Here’s what he said as regards to
the Gimmel Ring: “A curious artist
wrought ‘em, / With joynts so close as to
not to be perceiv’d; / Yet are they
both each other’s counterpart.” Yeah.
Well. They spoke a little funny in them
thar days. Today’s equivalent would be
something like: “A strange little jeweler
made it so’s you couldn’t see the rivets
and each part looked like a clone of
the other.” A rose by any other name and
all that.
In England they called it a Joint Ring.
Even the old bard Shakespeare men-
tioned
it in Othello. Here’s how it worked. It was
a betrothal ring. And since the one
I’m going to show you is in three parts ...
we’ll cover that scenario.
She and He fall in love. It happens. And
they commit. No jokes on this one
folks. Too easy. And so ... as tradition
had it from the time we emerged from
the caves and stopped slaying woolly
mammoths with clubs ... he bought her a
ring. A three part ring. And he went
around to his friends and said: Hey. You
want to be my witness? Sure Benjamin.
We’d love to. Believe it or not ... by the
purist coincidence ... this guy’s name was
Benjamin too. Who woulda thunk it? So
Benjy takes the ring ... twists it open ...
and hands one part to his witness
... one part to his lady fair ... and one part
he keeps for himself.
And then there were some vows. Listen.
Do you swear you’re going to marry me.
Hell yes. You got my ring? Of course.
Here’s yours. I’ll wear one. And my friend
Irving here will wear the other one till we
tie the knot. He’s our witness. And
when we marry you get to wear all three.
And in utter glee she would gambol
through the meadow yelping little throaty
sounds of ecstasy while Benjy tried to
figure out how to pay for the durned
thing. He wasn’t making that much as a
wick-twister in the candle factory and he
worried about his future because rumor
was rife with stories about the imminent
emergence in the next hundred years or so
of some sort of a contraption that
would be called a light bulb which would
replace the candle. His earnings were
on the verge of teetering to the edge of
extinction. Life hasn’t really changed
all that much since then. Today the steer-
ing wheel is on it’s way out and before
you know it we won’t know what we’ll do
with our hands while we’re driving. All
suggestions here welcome. Life is complex.
The dilemmas are endless.
As to the Gimmel Ring I have to show you
... it is rather magnificent looking.
The hand mechanism twists to unlock. It
has what appears to be an amethyst in
the center. And I think the inscription
says something to the effect of “Whom
the Lord has joined together, Let no man
put asunder.” Just out of curiosity ...
without looking it up ... how many of you
know what “asunder” means? Hmmm?
Go ahead. Use it in a sentence.