Eye Pins and Wrapped Loops - Or Why Did My Bracelet Fall Apart?
(This article was first published on 01-04-2013 on my old online store, which no longer exists.)
This will be the first of a series of jewelry buying tips for customers.
Anyway, we'll start out with a jewelry basic: loops. It's one of the first things a jewelry artist learns to make and is used in all kinds of designs.
Did you ever buy a piece of jewelry that was made out of cool little wire links that just fell apart on you after wearing it a few times? An open loop may have been the culprit.
I was recently cleaning out all the stuff my grown daughter left behind in her room, and I came across what appeared to be the remains of a bracelet:
Cute little rondelle beads - I think maybe I'll make some earrings out of them! Take a closer look and you'll see why the bracelet is in pieces:
That's called an open loop. They tend to come apart. In this case it's a piece of wire with a an open loop at both ends. Earrings very commonly use something called an eye pin, which is a piece of wire with a loop like this at one end rather than both ends. Either way, they aren't very sturdy. If you want your jewelry to last, you want as few of these as possible.
Now take a look at this loop:
This is a wrapped loop. Which one would you trust to hold your beads?
Wrapped loops take more time and skill on the part of the jewelry artist. Depending on how many of them there are, it can increase the cost of a piece. However the piece will last significantly longer. I would say "you get what you pay for", but that's not necessarily the case. Sometimes people charge for quality jewelry when it's really made very cheaply.
I hope this has given you some helpful information that will come in handy next time you are shopping for jewelry.
Next time I'll be talking about a subject that is really very similar: jump rings.
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