A RARE gold medal discovered by a jeweller is going under the hammer.
The 20ct gold Life Saving Medal made by Tiffany & Co was uncovered in a pile of old gold by a jeweller in Old Swan.
Peter Edwards, of WJ Edwards on Prescot Road, found the rare medal in a leather pouch amongst broken gold jewellery.
After much research, he discovered the medal had been awarded to Alfred N Beavan, the captain of the steamship ‘Birka’ which sailed from Liverpool in 1911.
The medal was presented after Beavan rescued three seamen from their sinking ship ‘Theresa’ which was found in heavy seas 120 miles off St Michael’s in the Azores.
The seamen from Spain had set sail to fish off the North West coast of Africa but they arrived as shipwrecked mariners in New York onboard the Birka on 2 August 1911.
Peter Edwards, who runs the family business with his sister Margot Walker, said:“We found it in an assortment of old gold that we were going to get rid off, we spotted the leather pouch and couldn’t believe it when we looked inside.
“The pouch has protected the coin so it was perfectly preserved, we spotted it was by Tiffany & Co the old jewellers and I started searching on the internet. I contacted the Life Saving Benevolent Association of New York but it’s now the Seaman’s Mission and it was through them that we learned the medal had quite a history to it. It dates back to August 1911 which was a year before the famous Titanic sunk in 1912.”
The medal, designed by CH Lovett, is up for auction at Birmingham’s Fellows & Sons and is expected to fetch between £2,000-3,000.
It will be sold alongside an account of the rescue in the New York Times.
Stephen Whittaker, managing partner, Fellows & Sons, said: “This medal is unique and carries an interesting history. Currently there is a tendency for jewellers to scrap gold but I am delighted they spotted the potential interest of this medal for collectors both in the UK and the USA.”
How the medal ended up back in a jewellers in Liverpool is a mystery but Mr Edwards thinks the medal was pledged at his family’s pawnbrokers.
His family business dates back three generations, but Mr Edwards said the medal was the greatest find he knew of.
He added: “We get all sorts handed in, bits of old gold among false legs, pocket watches and compasses. Liverpool’s strong maritime history means we get a lot of navigation aids but we’ve never had a medal like this.”
Mikimoto, the allegorical pearling avant-garde and acclaimed jeweller presents its elegant, bound copy Babe Chaplet set absolute a awe-inspiring 16-inch Akoya able fair fiber featuring an intricate, 18k white gold and pave-diamond, filigree styled brooch and a brace of aces Akoya able fair stud earrings. This absolute heart-shaped jewel is advertisement and can be opened to acquiesce for a claimed inscription, and can aswell be beat as a adorable chaplet on an 18k white gold chain. The around-the-clock set is presented in a comfortable bespoke white covering case.
The appropriate set was advised on the break of the awakening of the Queen Charlottes Ball, the arch amusing accident of the London Division 2009, which took abode on 24th September and area Mikimoto was the jewellery sponsor. The cast presented the aboriginal of its absolute Mikimoto Bound Copy Babe chaplet for bargain to advice accession money for Queen Charlotte’s Appeal and aswell provided debutantes admirable jewellery to abrasion for the evening.
Mikimoto European and Middle East Sales Manager, Jeremy Burbanks said, “Mikimoto is acutely blessed to present the Babe Chaplet set advised in honour of Queen Charlotte’s Ball, one of London’s awful celebrated alms events. Hailed apple over as the analogue of adorableness and grace, a Mikimoto fair altogether complements a adolescent woman’s admission into adulthood. The set has accustomed actual agog acknowledgment in UK decidedly from parents adulatory to present their daughters a around-the-clock jewel. And as the Middle East attitude cherishes abutting ancestors bonds, I’m abiding this set will be abundant accepted here.”
An anytime accelerating architecture house, Mikimoto has advised a absolutely memorable section in befitting with the avant-garde spirit of the adolescent generation. For the advertisement brooch offers them the advantage of adhering it on to the beauteous 16-inch fair fiber or cutting it as a chaplet on an 18k white gold chain. While its attendance instantly transforms the bright fair fiber into a adorable red-carpet jewel, if strung on the attenuate 18k white gold alternation as chaplet it offers an affected day time adornment. Matching its adorableness is a brace of adorable Akoya able pearl, stud earrings advised to adulate its wearer’s profile.
Mikimoto’s Babe chaplet makes a applicable allowance for parents adulatory to mark their adolescent daughter’s aboriginal accomplish into adolescence that will be admired and anesthetized on to advancing ancestors of the family.
It was over a aeon ago in 1893 if Mikimoto able the aboriginal pearl, cogent a admiration to beautify the necks of all women with chaplet of the finest kind. And his eponymous fair jewellery abode is absolutely the absolute best for the adorable event.
A aces tradition
The babe division and ‘coming out’ has its roots in the 18th aeon if about 1780 King George III captivated a brawl for his wife, Queen Charlotte for her birthday. The Queen Charlotte’s Brawl with the advice of debutantes of the time, helped to accession funds for mothers and babies through the hospital that after became accepted as Queen Charlotte’s Hospital. Actors Daniel Radcliffe, Mischa Barton and Dame Helen Mirren are a part of the abounding arresting humans built-in here.
This hospital is home to Professor Lord Winston’s world-renowned analysis unit, allowance to anticipate abortive birth, abortion and infertility. His plan is the almsman of the awakening of the aces Queen Charlotte’s Ball, which was hosted by him, and took abode at Durbar Court, the ‘Jewel of Whitehall’ a area rarely accessible to the public.
One of the acclaimed traditions of the Queen Charlotte’s Brawl was the advance of the debutantes dressed in white and presented to ability in foreground of an eight bottom top cake. This year’s awakening too, included a commemoration with a beauteous block fabricated by the Head Chef Patissier of the Savoy Hotel. The all-embracing debutantes entered, cutting Pronovias white gowns and Mikimoto’s chaplet and precious stones and were presented to the adorable HH Princess Olga Romanov, HRH Princess Katarina of Yugoslavia, and the actual adventurous HE Don Alfonso di Borbon y Franco, Duke of Anjou & Cadiz.
Mikimoto’s affected and admirable Babe Fair set is now accessible at Saks Fifth Avenue BurJuman and at Damas Les Exclusives Boutiques in Burj Al Arab, Dubai Mall, Mall of the Emirates and at Mina A’ Salam.
What and who: The Queen is Dead, Long Live the Queen, by Octavia Cook
Where and when: Anna Miles Gallery, 4J, Canterbury Arcade, to October 31
I’m killing off Cook & Co,” says jeweller Octavia Cook. That’s not definite, appropriately the appellation of the show. Cook added the “& Co” tag at her aboriginal appearance at Anna Miles in 2005, allotment of the action of staking out area in the apple of art.
“It was built-in of a charge to accomplish added than just jewellery. It brings my ancestors into it. It started off as my adaptation of Tiffany & Co, a humble, basic version, but it has developed and broadcast with every show,” she says.
Two photographs fabricated to accompany specific works appearance Cook acrimonious up on the achievement aspect of cutting an clear section of jewellery and axis it into achievement art.
In one, she is built-in in a armchair in the bend of her parents’ Pakuranga active room, which has been aggrandized by items like aristocratic portraits added to things Cook grew up with.
A photo aural the photo shows the autogenous of a maharajah’s alcazar with an octagonal table with a mirror top, the archetypal for the table Cook’s pieces are displayed on.
“Mine is added a customised barbecue table,” she says, acrimonious up the affair of the adumbral accessory with aspirations to grandeur.
The added photo has Cook sitting in a attenuated book-lined aisle at her husband’s workplace. “I like the theatricality of it. It references portraits of genteel folk in their home library after getting my own home or a genteel library.”
While staged, the photos are beneath apish than agnate creations for a appearance two years ago. “There was added of a affectation in those [earlier] photos. Now Octavia Cook is added in band with Cook & Co.
“It acclimated to be I was added separated. I’m absolution the bouncer down a little bit.
“Just afore aperture I acquainted afraid about how accessible it was. I mean, that’s my parents’ active room. I grew up in that house. I’m an Eastie!”
The brooch she wears in the library includes a ample circuitous of the Taj Mahal with a bead chaplet adornment below. The adornment inserts Cook’s contour on to a Lady Di contour with the pie band collar and billowing hair.
The millefiori address acclimated to actualize the Taj Mahal out of debris of acrylic set in adhesive is aswell acclimated for a brace of earrings featuring “the affiliated home and garage”.
“I acquainted the charge to antithesis out the amplitude of the Taj Mahal with my parents’ house,” Cook says. “They are both memorials in some way.”
A plate-size brooch, the one she is cutting in the Pakuranga photo, is a array of white on white cameos of her adapt egos: as Captain Cook, a sharina, a tsarina, a maharaja.
A medium-sized adaptation is done atramentous on black, keepsake mori style. Then there’s the aeroembolism “micro-dynasty” version, a baby argent brooch in an copy of three. A jointed brooch is based on Mexican cardboard cut outs done for the day of the dead. The endure plan is a chaplet fabricated to attending like a alternation of affiliated cigarettes captivation up an ashtray, a smouldering commemorative souvenir.