This is my first and only so far, book of the series. I choose the Head Ornaments mostly because it’s something we don’t seems to wear as much as before. It’s become much more discreet and functional, traditionally speaking, to wear these days.

The book is divided by the four major regions provided in the title. Each one starts with an introduction to the continent. Africa and Asia are further divided into areas. The text refers the symbology and use of jewelry, more specifically head ornaments. The history and culture is put into context.

Then follow full pages of beautiful photography. This book is somewhat big in dimensions, ideal to to admire the details in each piece.

In order not to clutter the amazing photos through out the book, there’s a section at the end named “captions”. Here you find every photo smaller and in black and white, with page number, country, materials, size and a description of the pieces. How those were used, their place it in the history and culture of the region.

I think it’s a great history source and very visual inspiring, it takes us back to the roots of jewelry.
I would love to get the rest of the volumes.

Africa
- North Africa
- The Sahara
- West Africa
- East Africa
- Central Africa
- Southern Africa

Asian
-The Levant
- Turkestan
- India
- The Himalayas
- Mongolia
- The Middle Kingdom
- The Land of the Rising Sun
- Indonesia

Oceania & America.

View book details on Amazon: UK.

“Jewelry Concepts and Technology” by Oppi Untracht,
published by Robert Hale Ltd.
(Get it cheaper on Amazon though.)

The bible for jewelers, as most say. This book is very valuable if you’re a professional, or a serious student.
This is not something for those who are simply curious about the subject.

Also, this book is written in a very simple english, easy to follow for those whom english is not their native language.

With 840 pages, this is not a book to read start to finish. This is a great source for reference, with plenty illustrations to guide you. It lists every tool and technique from the more basic to the more elaborate. And everything is explained in great detail through out the book, what it is, what it does and how it’s done.
It’s nice to have this book around in the work place.

{ tables }

I must say I find the tables a bit confusing at times. The book tries to be as universal as possible, using ounces, grams, inches, millimeters, Celsius, Fahrenheit and conversion tables. But many things are in inches only, for example, lacking their equivalent.
At first glance, I don’t even understand why there must be a table for, let say, “Sterling Silver Sheet (weight in ounces per square foot; various widths, B & S gauge)“. Maybe I’m missing something, or maybe I just don’t like to look at tables with a whole bunch of numbers in it.

{ consultation }

It becomes very handy when you need to remind yourself of a technique you haven’t used in quite a while. Imagine time as passed and you haven’t really applied something your learned to your works. Until one day, you think of a design, or a design is presented to you, and now it is just what you to do. Your brain is probably a bit rusty, so you look it up on the book.

Or you can just learn something new. You might need to learn about a technique to apply on a piece, but taking a workshop or short course might be unnecessary. Be it because you just need the basics, or maybe you don’t really want to use it, you just really need it to this one piece. And as long as you have a comfortable level of experience, you’ll be able to nail it. Of course, some might be harder than others.

I think there’ll always be occasions when we’ll have to resort to less familiar techniques to us (maybe except some rare cases). And that makes this book indispensable.

{ the end }

So I’ll finish with the titles of the 19 sections. Each section is further divided into a few more titles. But the major titles are already a very nice indicator of what to expect of content.

The Message of Jewelry: Why we wear ornaments

The Means to Creation: Working environment, facilities and implements

Metal, The Jewel’s Raw Material: It’s origin, quality, control and Variety

Basic Techniques: Processing sheet metal without deformation

Sheet Metal: Forming by deformation techniques

Wire: The uses of drawn or extruded flexible filaments

Tubing: The uses of fistular forms

Surface Ornament Without Heat: Metal removal techniques

Surface Ornament With Heat: Metal fusion Techniques

Fabrication: Building fragments into units

Casting: Methods of giving form to molten metal

Natural Materials in Jewelry: Using nature’s valued nonmetals

Stones and their Setting: Inorganic minerals employed in jewelry

Metal Finishing: Archiving desired surface appearance

Metallic Coating Techniques: Changing the base metal’s surface appearance

Metallic Buildup: Electronic molecular creation of surface and form

Coloring Metals: Achieving patinas through heat, chemicals and electrolysis

Standard Weights, Measures and Tables

19 Glossaries; Bibliographies; Sources of Tools, Supplies and Services (for the USA and the UK.)

View book details on Amazon: UK or US.

Their only purpose is to inspire you, and I think it does a very nice job at it.
Do remember that these are mainly contemporary works.

Rings, Bracelets, Brooches, Earrings, Necklaces, Pendants & Lockets and Wedding Rings, you have a book for each one.

These books are a compilation of works from people around the world.
Lark Books would announce what subject they wanted, and artists submit their photos to them. Then the best (to their opinion) are selected and hence a book is born.

I think this is what makes it such a nice collection, you get the chance to see items that otherwise you probably never would have. Because some might even not have a website or blog.
So it’s not about known artists, everybody has a chance to participate and show off.

Visit Lark Books.