Posted 12 years ago
Cori
(1 item)
I was hiking on the Greyback Loop trail just outside of Idaho City with my family one year and found this interesting piece while cleaning the garbage up on the trail. Wherever we hike, we take big leaf bags with us to haul the garbage we find along the way out of the trails. I found this half buried in the mud, actually inside a horseshoe print, thought it was just another piece of junk until I cleaned it off.
I've spent years trying to identify it, and the nearest I could guess (based on the visual details) was that it might be a sort of First Communion souvenir. Inside the ring, there are ears of wheat and grapes, with a descending dove on the cross above it. Those are all common elements of a communion medallion, but it was in ring form instead of a solid engraved drop. I wasn't sure what the ten balls symbolize either. I posted this here, and after five minutes being shared on Facebook, one of my former schoolmates identified it! It's a rosary ring; the ten balls represent Hail Marys.
From cross to ball, it's almost two inches long, a little over 1.5 inches wide, and the balls are 5 millimeters thick, the medal itself about 2 millimeters thick. It has a nice heft to it, but I'm not sure about the metal it's made of. There are a couple of patches where the bronze/copper is scraped off to reveal a silver tone metal. There's a hole in the top of the medal, right through the bird's body and the cross. I don't know if someone tried to drill a hole in it to wear it, but it looks like they did, and it was bent open like it'd been yanked off the chain the hole had been drilled for.
It's actually a ROSARY that Catholic's use when travelling. Catholic youths were given these when they joined the Catholic Scouts. There is a special name for these but I can't remember. Someone will certainly chime in. RER(BOB)
Thanks, Lou Manal, a former schoolmate identified it as a rosary ring, spot on!
Just to add -- these are also commonly called finger rosaries or finger rosary rings.
Pop culture reference: I was watching reruns of Northern Exposure recently and noticed that the character of "Chris in the Morning" (Chris Stevens) often wears one on a chain around his neck! I don't think it's ever been remarked upon, maybe because so few viewers would recognize what it was.