How does memorial jewellery differ from mourning jewellery?

Mourning jewellery marks a phase - it signals that someone is in mourning. Memorial jewellery is a bond - it is tailored to one particular person and remains permanently wearable. In practice, any piece of mourning jewellery bearing an inscription, a lock of hair or a fingerprint is memorial jewellery at the same time.

Which personalisations are common today?

Four paths dominate: fingerprint as a milled or engraved line drawing in gold, silver or platinum · engraving with initials, date of death, handwriting captured from a photograph · hairwork with a lock under rock crystal · ashes in a sealed capsule or as the central stone in a memorial diamond.

Does the person have to have died already?

No. Memorial jewellery is increasingly commissioned during a person's lifetime: a parent-and-child pendant with an infant's fingerprint, a couple's ring with each other's impressions, a family locket with strands of hair from several generations. The boundary with sentimental jewellery is fluid.

How is a fingerprint captured today?

By smartphone or tablet camera, either directly at the coffin or at a workshop visit during life. The software optimises the image into a line contrast that can be milled or engraved into metal. The original photograph stays in the commission archive; the finished piece carries only the lines.

Can memorial jewellery be passed on?

Yes, and it is often deliberately made to be inherited - pieces with fingerprints or ashes in particular are handed down within families over several generations. An inscription or a workshop certificate helps to secure the provenance permanently.

Memorial Jewellery

Memorial jewellery is jewellery that deliberately binds itself to one particular person - through an inscription, a photograph, hair, ashes or, the defining medium today, a digitally captured fingerprint.

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