Dollar Jewelry | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 30, 1861

Dollar Jewelry.

Speaking of the stores established in many cities of the United States where purchasers of jewelry can have their "choice for one dollar," the Chicago Journal says:

The principal composition used in the manufacture of jewelry is termed oreide, and is simply an excellent quality of brass. It is the most positive imitation of gold that has ever been discovered; it wears like it—not discoloring anything it touches, as common brass or copper will; it may be engraved or chased—being the same all the way through. It is much softer and more readily fused than gold, however, and its value may be imagined when we say that a dozen finely chased spoons of this metal can be bought for $4,50, with a profit to the retailer even at that price of over thirty-three per cent.

Of this metal the N. Y. Scientific American, most excellent authority, says:

Oreide of gold, of which so many cheap articles of jewelry are now made, is simply a very beautiful brass, without a single grain of gold in its composition. The costliest part of the oreide operation is the molds and forms in which the jewelry is shaped and cut. Were they obliged to have these molds made expressly at each change of fashion, it would materially reduce the profits; but they avoid this difficulty by purchasing molds in which jewelers have made the real gold jewelry, and thus also obtain the latest patterns. Probably the most expensive piece of jewelry does not cost for the metal, molding, putting together, and making up, forty cents.