Can anybody tell me anything about this ring? (WWI era Banded Quartz stone)

[creskol]

Here is what I know. It was found in a Civil War camp along with a Rhode Island button. It is quite worn, and the rim of silver that holds the stone in is just about worn away, although the stone is still secure. The only marks I see is where it says STERLING as seen in the photographs.
The silver has quite a bit of discoloration, but it I believe that it is sterling and not plated.

I am curious if it is indeed Civil War era, what kind of stone it might be, and any other information.

Thanks for your help!

[AU24K]

I would say tiger eye. The design does look old...

Nice find!

Best,
Scott

[civilman1]

Very Cool ring Rob....Look's German to me

[TheCannonballGuy]

Creskol wrote:
> The only marks I see is where it says STERLING as seen in the photographs.
> I am curious if it is indeed Civil War era, what kind of stone it might be, and any other information.

Creskol, I'm sure you already know most of the following information. I'm including it here for other readers, who may not already know the info.

The term "Sterling silver" refers to manufactured silver objects which contain no less than 92.5% silver. From approximately the 13th-century until well-into the 20th-century, European (especially British, French, and German) silver-manufacturers applied a hallmark-symbol (or occasionally, a set of three numbers) to denote the percentage of silver in the object. In America, the European system (using hallmark-symbols, or numbers) was followed until 1868, when American silversmiths first adopted a Standard-of-Purity for sterling silver, to distinguish it from Coin-Silver, which is only 90%-pure silver (or less).

The earliest occurrence of stamping the spelled-out word "sterling" (instead of a hallmark symbol, or numbers) onto silver objects seems to have happened in the 1870s, and seems to have been begun by American silversmiths shortly after the 1868 adoption of an American standard for the content of Sterling silver. That info comes from extensive websearching, and in particular the Wikipedia article on Sterling Silver hallmarks, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_hallmarks
Scroll down to the section on United States hallmarks, where the artilcle says "After the adoption of the sterling standard, pieces were marked with "STERLING", the number "925" or the notation "925/1000".

If correct, the information indicates a silver object (like Creskol's ring) dates from no earlier than 1868/early-1870s. Despite extensive websearching, I've been unable to find any silver objects stamped "Sterling" whose time-period is CONFIRMED to be pre-1870. (Do not trust the claims of sellers on Ebay.)

All of that having been said... I don't believe I know everything there is to know. If somebody here has (or can find) SOLID PROOF that the information is incorrect, please do post it here, so we can all learn something new about dating silver objects which are stamped "Sterling."

[Bigcypresshunter]

At first glance kinda reminds me of the 60's-70's mood ring. But Im sure if it changed colors you would have noticed so I guess its Tiger Eye.

[TheCannonballGuy]

About "changing colors"... actually, in my own experience (as a Mood Ring owner back in the late-1960s/early-1970s), the liquid-crystals substance which caused a Mood-Ring's stone to change colors would "wear out" after a year or so, and became a perpetual gray-black color ...even though the gray-black still had the eerie Tigereye-like "sheen" when viewed from different angles. Creskol, does that accurately decribe what your ring's stone looks like? If so, BigCypressHunter gets the credit for correctly ID-ing the ring.

[creskol]

About "changing colors"... actually, in my own experience (as a Mood Ring owner back in the late-1960s/early-1970s), the liquid-crystals substance which caused a Mood-Ring's stone to change colors would "wear out" after a year or so, and became a perpetual gray-black color ...even though the gray-black still had the eerie Tigereye-like "sheen" when viewed from different angles. Creskol, does that accurately decribe what your ring's stone looks like? If so, BigCypressHunter gets the credit for correctly ID-ing the ring.

I don't think it's a mood ring, but I will find out in the morning. I will take it by a jeweler that does most of my cleaning on stuff like this and see what his thoughts are. I will let you know.

[creskol]

I took it to the jeweler this morning to have it evaluated. He said it is a WWI era ring and the stone is banded quartz.
He did a beautiful job cleaning it up for me, too!