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More on Antique
Chains...
Victorian
Chains
For much of the 19th century chain were made by
hand-working skills. Because of the work involved, craftsmen
avoided very fine links and chains were designed carefully in
order to reduce the time making them. This is understandable. I
myself tried my hand at silversmithing and very well know how much
work can go into a single piece, yet alone a bunch of chain links!
So these craftsman used their ingenuity and made longer links.
Made sense. Some of the chains were made from hundreds of tiny
stampings which needed no soldering.
As you can
see in this pic, there are three chains above
(the left three) that are machine stamped and connected with O
rings.
The Graduated
Curb Chain is typical example of labor intensive chainmaking. The
Loop-In-Loop chain is of ancient origin and there are many clever
variations on this simple basic idea. The advantage was that each
loop could be soldered before being assembled, thus preventing the
problem of accidentally soldering a number of links together.
Watch Chains
The watch
chain served the practical function of allowing the watch to be
taken from the pocket and retained securely while being used. The
Albert Chain was a long chain which was secured at the
center to one of the buttonholes of the waistcoat and hung in
curves to pockets on each side. (SEE BELOW)
c 1892
Variety of Ladies' Rolled Plate Victoria Chains
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