Edwardian Pearl Pencil Bangle Bracelet

This antique bangle, crafted in 15ct yellow gold and hallmarked for London, 1907, is a truly delightful collector’s piece. Designed as a slender, elegant circlet, it conceals within its form a fully functioning pencil, housed in a delicate cage and connected by a chain, ready to capture a passing idea, a line of verse or a fleeting moment’s inspiration.

The mechanism is beautifully integrated, it’s housing adorned with foliate motifs, reminiscent of ivy, curling gently around the pencil form to keep it securely attached to the wrist. Small pearls are set into the leaves, adding a soft luminosity to the design. Ivy has long been a symbol of fidelity, endurance, and eternal life. It is a plant that climbs, grows, and persists – like ideas that take hold and refuse to let go, or art that extends far beyond its creator. 

There is something deeply romantic about this piece, made in a time when inspiration was caught quickly, privately, by hand – perhaps pressed quickly into the margins of an old book, the bottom of a letter, the corner of a notebook. An heirloom made for the writer, the thinker, the creative, we can only imagine who this might have been worn by – the pencil extended in quiet moments to record something too important to trust to memory.

A wearable reminder that inspiration is never far away…and indeed, may even be blooming just beneath your sleeve…
 
 
“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” 
 
~ William Wordsworth