Captive Rainbows : Midcentury “Floating Opal” Earrings in Sterling Silver

These fascinating little drops of whimsy are examples of “floating opal” jewellery. Chips of solid opal are placed into a glass vial and suspended in clear liquid. The liquid both serves to enhance the colours in the opal chips, and in some cases allows the chips to move around inside the glass vial.

“Floating opal” jewellery was developed and patented in the 1920’s by Horace H. Welch of Chicago, a mechanical engineer turned jeweller. Although dear Horace had formally patented his invention it was copied by other jewellers the world over, and became very popular in the 1950s and 1960s.

This pair of floating opal earrings are in an unusual vial shape – usually the vials are more orb-like, but these have a tapered rather than bulbous shape, somewhat resembling glass vials used in scientific laboratories. They originally had screw-back fittings, hallmarked 935 with a makers mark. I have replaced the old fittings to make them more wearable, but I will pass along the original the screw-backs to the new owner. 935 silver was the standard for silver jewellery in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, so we can confidently say these were made in that region.

Manufacture: 
Glass vials are filled with solid Australian opal chips and then filled with clear liquid (usually glycerin) The silver caps are modelled in 935 sterling silver, the new shepherd’s hooks are hallmarked 925 for sterling silver.

The earrings have a drop of 38.73mm.
The opal vials and caps measure 24.7mm x 7.35mm x 7.35mm.
Weighs 2.6 grams (pair)

Condition: 
Very good. On one of the earrings the epoxy cap sealing the liquid has discoloured, but this is mostly hidden beneath the cap, and is quite common for this type of jewel. There are no visible bubbles.