All that glitters

Last week I got married. For the wedding I fished this out, it's of sentimental rather than practical value. On the inside is my maternal grandmother's wedding ring, around that is her father, my great-grandfather's signet ring. The signet ring was far to old and thin to wear (it kept snapping) and the weddings are a bit of an oddity anyway, so I had a jeweller send them away to be stuck together and an attachment point was added at the top, so I could at least wear it.

To be honest I don't go in for jewellery, so I only wore it now and then, and then for the best part of two decades it lived in an old film canister moving from home to home. For my wedding I thought I should wear it as it was the only family thing I had near me.

For those that care as far as I know both rings and the chain are 9 carat gold, so they are only 37.5% gold at best and actually mostly copper and some silver. It makes them cheaper and more durable than 18 carat or higher gold, but it does also mean they aren't as shiny and the copper reacts with air and water for form green copper nitrate which you can see pretty quickly if you don't wash them regularly.