69cms Antique 9ct Gold chain, handmade English, pre-First World War. While it is not correct to say that all handcrafted jewellery bench work ended with the Great War, it is true that England in the post-war years faced a huge lack of trade/craft practitioners, in bench jewellery-making as much as in any other trade, for so many of them failed to return. In the post-war years costume jewellery proliferated, much of it in contemporary Art Deco styles, schematically realized, somewhat flimsy.
The above chain is a fine example of the work of a practiced bench jeweller diligent in the creation of a cleanly crafted Gold chain, links perfectly uniform, all solderings neat, undetectable. This sort of work is tedious and labour-intensive.
Each link in the above chain is two links soldered together, so the whole length of the chain is a series of one two-link link joined to another two-link link, a type of linkage given the name “belcher”. Handmade, not machined.