Heirloom fire-cherry quartz rosary with antique center (October)

Description

NOTE: The center and the Ave beads of this rosary are back in stock, and can be used together or separately in a new rosary.  Please inquire!

This heirloom rosary’s Ave beads are mixed colors of 8mm faux-tourmaline beads usually called “fire cherry quartz” and the Pater beads are 10mm primrose lampwork beads; the Paters are set off with (and protected from wear) by 6/0 rose-colored silver-lined beads. The center is an antique vesica-shaped Two-Hearts medal, with the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the front and the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the reverse and a beautiful pierced border. The medal shows some wear but is in excellent antique condition. A reproduction crucifix finishes the drop section.

The rosary is 27″ long from center of the decades to the bottom of the crucifix. The wire is 1/10 silver-filled wire, meaning that the wire is 1/10 sterling silver permanently bonded to a red brass core; it wears like sterling silver and looks like sterling silver, but at a fraction of the price, and does not wear off like silver-plate does.

I chose this particular medal from my collection of antique and vintage medals to convert into a center because it is silver-plate over copper, and the copper is starting to show through the silver-plate just a tiny bit, in such a way that the faces and hands and slight border details become slightly rosy–and that rosy color is set off so beautifully by the beads! I wire-wrapped the lower portion of the medal with a unique chevron-style ‘frame’ for stability on which to hang the drop section, and used a wire-wrapped double loop to attach the two sides of the decades section so that the decade section’s weight hangs on the double loop, not on the single loop at the top of the medal.

One secret I put into this rosary: when I was choosing the beads for the initial 3 Aves upon which we pray ‘for an increase in Faith, Hope, and Love’, I specifically chose those three colors and placed them in that specific order, starting on the crucifix end: the earthy, strong striated gold for rock-solid Faith, the clear pink for the radiance of Hope, and the pure clarity of the clear quartz for the purity of Love.

Fire cherry quartz is a reconstituted quartz stone using quartz particles of various colors to simulate watermelon tourmaline. (True watermelon tourmaline is hardly ever found as transparent or partially-clear beads, as that quality is almost always cut as a faceted gemstone and much more expensive.) Tourmaline in all its colors is one of the October birthstones; it is usually shown as the pink of the most common portion of tourmaline crystals. The stripes/inclusions and varied colors of these beads very well replicate watermelon tourmaline; see the closeups for details.