What does the inscription *Gold gab ich für Eisen* mean?

The inscription - "I gave gold for iron" - refers to the Prussian government's appeal of 1813, in which the population was asked to donate gold jewellery to finance the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon. In exchange the donors received jewellery of finely cast black iron bearing the inscription Gold gab ich für Eisen (occasionally in Latin as Aurum pro ferro). The gesture was doubly coded: a patriotic sacrifice on the one hand, a visible sign of mourning and remembrance on the other.

Where was Berlin iron made?

At three main Prussian sites. Berlin - the royal iron foundry at the Invalidenpark (founded 1804), the best-known and style-setting site. Gleiwitz in Upper Silesia (today Gliwice, Poland) - the oldest Prussian iron foundry (1796), the principal supplier for large castings and small jewellery castings. Sayn in the Rhineland near Koblenz (foundry from 1815) - specialising in especially fine filigree work.

Why is cast iron suited to fine jewellery?

Three factors. Material: the blast-furnace pig iron used in Prussia can be cast in extremely fine sand and wax moulds - lines under 0.5 mm thick are possible. Working: after casting, the iron pieces are made corrosion-resistant and given a matt black finish by a special blackening process (heating and treatment with linseed oil). Aesthetics: the fine black iron structure produces a graphic line drawing which in jewellery reads as at once modern and industrial and antique-revival.

What became of the manufactories after 1870?

The decline came in two stages. From the 1860s onwards Berlin iron lost its specifically mourning-related status - new matt black materials (Whitby jet, vulcanite, French jet) served the expanding Victorian international market. From 1875 the jewellery lines of the royal iron foundry were discontinued one by one; the manufactories concentrated on architectural fittings and large castings. The Berlin royal iron foundry was closed as an independent firm in 1875.

The Berlin Iron Manufactories

The Prussian royal iron foundries in Berlin, Gleiwitz and Sayn made fine jewellery of blackened cast iron between 1804 and around 1870 - at first as a patriotic exchange material during the Wars of Liberation (Gold gab ich für Eisen, "I gave gold for iron"), later as an established mourning and memorial line of the Biedermeier period.

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