[SCA-AS] Enameling with Goldstone [glass]

[rmhowe]

I wondered what my teacher was doing with the goldstone
I have always seen in brown.  I got an email from her some
time ago saying she was using that and ground Swarovski
Crystals [Austrian leaded glass] to enamel with.  I wrote
to her about seeing the emerald green goldstone [for anyone
who has never seen brown or green goldstone it is fairly
translucent with many hundreds of tiny golden flakes per cubic
inch. 

She is grinding it up and enameling it.  Apparently goldstone
is a type of glass.  So I suppose you could use obsidian too.
Said it is working real well in the agate mortar and pestle.
She thinks that since it is glass it should be available in other
colors too than just the green I've seen and the brownish
gold she has presently.  I reckon I am buying goldstone
next.  The people with it return on the 7th of July.

I posted their address recently. It is the first green goldstone
I have ever seen and it is beautiful. 

South East Gems & More
custom designs, jewelry repair, cut stones, wire wrapping,
facet rough, cabbing rough, tumbling rough, equipment and supplies.
P.O. Box 14577
Augusta, GA 30919
www.segems.com
Mark 706-490-4550;  Patricia  706-490-4515  Green Goldstone

My teacher also mentioned doing granulation in her last email. I'll have
to find out if she means the tiny applied metal balls or something
enamelish.  I wrote back and asked.  Haven't heard yet.
The period reference for that is
Birka V--Filigree and Granulation Work of the Viking Period :
An Analysis of Materials from Bjorko by Wladyslaw Duczko
(Illustrator) Library Binding, 118pp. ISBN: 9174021621
Publisher: Coronet Books  Pub. Date: June  1985
Ordered from Amazon 9/10/00  $37.49

One on 7-8th C enameling and glass in the Style of the Vendel Culture:
   Arwidsson, Greta.: Vendelstile. Email und Glas im 7.-8. Jahrhundert.
(Acta Musei Antiquitatum Septentrionalum Regiae Universitatis
Upsaliensis II./ Valsgärdestudien. 1.)  Uppsala & Stockholm
(Almqvist & Wiksell), 1942. 136pp.+ 8 plates, 94 illus. hors texte.
19 text figs. Lrg. 4to. 31 x 24 cm. Cloth, Wrappers.
You might try Ronnells.se for a copy. They respond in English if
you email them.  That is the biggest bookstore in all of Scandinavia.


BTW:  About post period silver standards - something I picked up
earlier this year:
Badcock, William; John Reynolds and William O'Sullivan:  
A New Touch-Stone for Gold and Silver Wares [and] A Brief
and Easie Way By Tables to Cast Up Silver to the Standard of XI
Ounces ij Penyweight and Gold to the Standard of XXII Carracts;
William Badcock, John Reynolds and William O'Sullivan (introduction)
Hard Cover, First Edition, 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall; Praeger 
Publishers, NY, 1971;
x, [20], 218 pages followed by about 120 pages of tables.
DESCRIPTION:  This is a photolithographic facsimile of the Second
Edition published in London in 1679.
        The first section of this book is a compendium of useful information
written primarily to advise persons engaged in buying and selling gold
and silver wares. It includes excerpts from early statutes regulating
manufacture and sale of metallic wares, a description of the method
of testing these wares with a touchstone, sketches of symbols    
used in the assay office, and an account of the legal redresses of
persons who found gold and silver wares deficient.
        The second section offers tables that show how gold and silver
could be brought up to the standard of purity then current by adding
and subtracting alloy.
        $30.50 1/2006

Magnus