Shiny Things for Crows

Since crows are attracted to shiny things, yesterday's crows would enjoy these bits of old jewelry on the page opposite them.  At top left is what's left of my dad's mother's engagement ring.  It's missing its central diamond, but the four petal-shapes surrounding the empty setting are encrusted with tiny diamond chips.   After my grandmother died, the diamond went to one of my brothers to use in an engagement ring for his wife.  To the right of the engagement ring is my grandfather's watch fob.  It has beautiful swirly letters engraved on the front surface with his initials, CFG .  The back of the watch fob is below and to the right.  There is a small diamond surrounded by star-like carvings. 

On the extreme right of the top row is a humble Cub Scout bobcat pin.  This belonged to one of my sons, either Erik or Michael, but I'm not sure who.  In the middle row is a wonderful little pinkie ring that my mother called a dinner ring.  It belonged to the same grandmother whose engagement ring is in the top row.  In the center of it is a large pearl, and surrounding the pearl are four turquoises, and surrounding them are five pale purple amethysts.  The ring part is wrapped in a wonderful little golden snake.  My grandmother gave me this ring when I was in high school, but my hands grew to be a lot larger than hers, and I never could fit it on my finger.  It's broken now, as you can see in the next drawing, which is of the back of the ring.

The bow-shaped pin was my other grandmother's wedding gift from my grandfather, and it's engraved on the inside with their wedding date, October 3, 1912.  The pin has 13 small pearls in graduated sizes and 10 diamonds, all relatively small and delicate. 

The most interesting piece of jewelry here, to me, is the bracelet at the bottom.  It was a favor from a Mardi Gras ball from the Krewe of Rex in 1924.  It's very beautiful, made of panels inlaid with mother of pearl, each a tiny landscape on a dark background.  In gold on one of the panels are the letters R24, which stand for Rex 1924.  It must have been my mother's mother's bracelet, because she would have been in her 40s in 1924 and of prime ball-going age, and my grandfather was a member of the Krewe of Rex.