matchstick necklace pendant - sterling silver
A beautifully textured wood matchstick necklace pendant in sterling silver … match jewelry
match
/maCH/
noun: match; plural noun: matches
: a short slender piece of flammable material (such as wood) tipped with a combustible mixture that bursts into flame when slightly heated through friction (as by being scratched against a rough surface)
- approximate measurement - 1 5/8“ (42mm) including loop x less than 1/8” (3mm)
- the matchstick is 3D and beautifully textured on all four sides
- the suspension loop inside measures 5/32” (4.5mm)
- metal - sterling silver (.925 silver)
- photographed with a US dime and inch ruler for scale
- this is for the charm only, please find the chain shown here
I’ve sand cast two wood matchsticks in sterling silver and then had them lost wax cast in sterling silver.
Hand crafted jewelry because how it's made matters!
Find the bronze matchstick, shown in the 2nd picture, here.
Find the sterling silver matchstick earrings here.
Find more matchstick jewelry here.
The iconic matchstick, something we don’t really think about but so useful when we need to make fire … it took 1000 years and many scientists and inventors to create a safe self-igniting source of fire.
It was only in the last 200 years that the match stick we love and use today was developed, first with an English chemist, John Walker, who invented the friction matchstick in 1827, but being unsafe it still needed improvement.
Later, Swedish chemist Gustaf Erik Pasch, contributed to Walker’s idea and created/invented the safety match by separating the fire making ingredients and creating a match head and a friction strip, both safe on their own but creating fire when the matchstick head strikes the friction strip. His safety match was patented in 1844.
Too expensive to manufacture, the Swedish industrialist and inventor John Edvard Lundström and his younger brother Carl Frans took the proven patented safety match design by Pasch, improved it and by 1853 began manufacturing the safety match.
More improvements were made to the manufacturing of the safety matchstick and matchbox with striker but it is still essentially the same safety match today … made of pine or aspen wood.
History made wearable!