Please help with age of this crucifix!!!

[testing123]

Found this today at a field that's yielded objects dating from the 1700s to today. It appears to be copper and measures about 1 3/4" tall and 1 1/8" wide. It looks to be relatively crude so I'm thinking maybe 1800s? But I really don't know. This is the first piece of jewelry I found in this field.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

 

[Havilah_Springs]

You might check into finding out when the first Catholic Church was in the area as the Crucifix has Jesus on it and this is common for Catholic crosses. This might give you an earliest date of your item.

H_S

 

[Havilah_Springs]

Nice find / piece by the way

H_S

 

[franking]

Very very nice find and piece. A bit more cleaning perhaps we can see some more detail.
Irish Catholic, French or Italian design work I presume.

 

[Roland58]

Have you determined the material? In a couple of spots on the "cleaned" pics, it appears it may be brass?

 

[testing123]

Have you determined the material? In a couple of spots on the "cleaned" pics, it appears it may be brass?

My initial thoughts are that it's copper, but I'm not 100% sure. The "patina" is beginning to flake so I'm a bit hesitant to clean it any more, in fear of damaging it any more. In one of the protected areas I do see a very small section of "gold" color, so maybe it really could be brass, or maybe have been gold plated at one time?

 

[mile-ender]

1800's is a good guess for age. The style of the cross appears to be Benedectine.
Some info on crosses and such can be found here - http://members.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=hazelbaby1993#Old Inlaid Crucifixes
But from what I've seen dating these things is pretty difficult...

 

[DCMatt]

Very difficult to date these. Here is a similar one but it is modern/new. I found it searching "openwork crucifix" on Google. Based on the size I think yours is from a rosary.



DCMatt