MetaChat - Pendant help.

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22 August 2008

Pendant help. I received a pendant a while back and I can't figure out how to wear it. →[More:]There's a huge amethyst-colored stone (there's a possibility that it actually is an amethyst) surrounded by sterling-silver setting that looks kind of like vines. The whole thing is about two inches long. The stone, so that it's all sparkly on the front of the pendant, is kind of conical on the back of the pendent, with lots of facets.

The problem is, the conical bit sticks out far enough that the pendent doesn't lie flat -- it tips to one side or the other when I wear it and it looks silly. Also, there's a huge hoop at the top of the pendant that also sticks way out on the back, which adds to the instability.

So, questions:

1. Is this just a badly designed pendant?

2. Is this not actually a pendant? The hoop at the top of it is large enough that I'm wondering if this piece of jewelry has some other use of which I am not aware.

3. Is it a properly designed pendent, and I just need either a larger chain to balance it out or need to wear it higher or lower or something?

I don't get it.

post by: occhiblu at: 18:40 | 10 comments

I'm sorry, I read that as "pedant help" and was immediately full of ideas. Now I know that you're talking jewelery, I've got nothing to say.

So I'll, uh, say nothing. Starting now.

posted by mudpuppie 22 August | 18:45

Larger chain.
≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by box 22 August | 18:53

So help me I originally read that as 'pedant help,' and was all geared up to get condescending and simplistic.

Buzzkill.

posted by jonmc 22 August | 18:58

I'm having a hard time visualizing it -- do you have a picture?

posted by loiseau 22 August | 19:13

From the description it seems that it is a pendant, but why the conical bit at the back? Maybe it's meant to be shown. Maybe the pendant is supposed to go on a larger necklace. On a strand of beads, maybe? It might stay put on a two or three strands of amethyst beads, depending on the diameter of the bead.

I'm trying to think of other pieces it may be. Like a brooch or a hair ornament, but I'm thinking it can't be these things because it doesn't lie flat.

At first I was thinking it might be a caged pendant, but from your description it sounds like a regular stone surrounded by metal, but sticking out in the back. Apologies for linking caged pendant. You probably know what one is, but I'm a linker.

posted by LoriFLA 22 August | 19:17

Have you tried wearing it on a collar (something like this) rather than a chain? I have a few pieces that flip-flop around if I wear them on chains, but which stay nice and stable on a collar. (Though the giant hoop-shaped bail sounds like it poses its own problem.)

posted by Elsa 22 August | 19:17

I'm sorry, I read that as "pedant help" and was immediately full of ideas. Now I know that you're talking jewelery, I've got nothing to say.

God, me too. I find it amusing that some sizeable minority of us read it that way.

posted by Miko 22 August | 20:09

Pedant help. Me too.

posted by tangerine 22 August | 23:20

*I* kept reading it as "pedant help" when I wrote it. I had to keep checking my spelling.

Maybe a collar would work. I would post a photo, but I am the only person in the world who does not own a digital camera or a cell phone with a camera. It's similar to this ring, but with more silver froofery around the stone, and, like I said, with the big bail (new vocab word! Thanks!) at the top. Looking at other pendents, it looks like a lot of them have the setting go back to stabilize the gem, like this, and I think that's what this pendent is lacking.

Oh, wait, this is helpful, maybe. If you scroll down to the second photo on that page, that's the shape of the stone in my pendent. But the setting they're showing on that page takes that into account and brings the setting all the way back to stabilize it as a pendent; mine just has the setting at the edges of the stone, but not going back at all.

posted by occhiblu 23 August | 11:20

wow, weird. I made this comment this morning but somehow it wasn't posted:

As to "how," if it were me, and my pendant didn't lay properly, I would put it on a chain with several other pendants in an ungainly gaudy clump, but thus do I retain my "loveable sparkly-hoarding oddnik" status.

posted by Ambrosia Voyeur 23 August | 18:55

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