Jewelry – Gem setting
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-01
2002-12-31
Swann, J. J. (Department: 3677)
Jewelry
Gem setting
C063S032000, C063S033000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06499314
ABSTRACT:
DESCRIPTION
The invention relates to a decorated natural or artificial pearl having an integrated ornamental element, and a method of manufacturing same. As ornamental elements, in particular semi-precious or precious stones are provided; parts formed from other materials, for example wood, glass, acrylic glass, inter alia, also come into consideration however.
Pearls from oysters have been from time immemorial a beloved and desired type of jewellery and since the beginning of pearl cultivation approximately 100 years ago an independent pearl market has developed which plays an important role in the jewellery industry. Amongst pearls those which have an ideal or almost ideal spherical shape and a uniformly formed spherical surface have always been preferred and consequently traded most.
In pearl cultivation and also in nature, however, it frequently happens that the pearl has a so-called “open place”. This means: the seed which the cultivator has inserted into the oyster or which has reached it in the natural manner is not uniformly covered with mother-of-pearl by the oyster but at one or more places no mother-of-pearl at all or only a relatively very thin layer of same is deposited, such that more or less deep pits of the most varied shape and extent have arisen. These “imperfect” “open places” on pearls count generally as a defect and considerably lessen the quality and thus the market value of the affected pearls.
It is admittedly generally known that a natural or artificial pearl can be provided with a through-bore or a blind end bore in order to draw it up on a thread and thus manufacture for example necklaces or bracelets, or in order to place it on a pin and secure it thus for example to rings, decorative pins and other jewellery bases. These bores are however in many if not even most cases not suitable for concealing “open places”, solely for the reason that the relevant “open place” has too great a diameter and/or the affected pearl has a plurality of “open places” which do not lie (by chance) on a line through the pearl centre.
The use of pearls is varied and includes also the combination of pearl(s) with precious stone(s). With such combinations it is generally a question of additions, i.e. a side-by-side arrangement of pearl(s) and stone(s), pearl(s) and stone(s) respectively representing separate, independent components of a brooch, a necklace, a bracelet, ring or some other piece of jewellery.
Up to present only one type of integrated combination of pearl and precious stone has been known. In this so-called “decorated pearl” the pearl is provided with a blind end bore running radially and a precious stone mounted in metal is cemented into this bore. The blind end bore has a round cross-section which is substantially smaller than half the diameter of the pearl and the shape of the precious stone or its mount is inevitably closely adapted thereto in terms of size and contour. DE 44 06 609 describes such a decorated natural or artificial pearl in which an ornamental element is introduced into a blind hole. The limited dimensions of the recess, here a bore, are considered as important in order not to impair the stability of the pearl.
The object underlying the invention is now to make available a decorated natural or artificial pearl having an integrated semi-precious or precious stone or ornamental elements formed from other materials or respectively a decoration for pearls, more especially for pearls with “open places” and a method of manufacturing decorated pearls of this type, the decoration taking up regions of any size of the pearl surface and the spherical surface being able to be designed in any way.
This object is achieved in the provision of a natural or artificial pearl of the type mentioned initially in which one or more ornamental elements is (are) configured as an inlay with or without a mount, the outer, visible upper or ornamental side, remote from the pearl, of each inlay having a horizontal projection of any contour and dimensions within the limits of the spherical surface, and the inner underside, facing the pearl, of each inlay being provided with at least one locking and/or anchoring means. Each inlay is accommodated as a form-fit or at least substantially as a form-fit in a recess (depression, pit) appropriately made for it, in the base and/or wall of which locking and/or anchoring means are formed which co-operate with those of the inlay, preferably by positive locking according to the key-lock principle, and in or respectively on which the inlay sitting in the recess is secured in or on the pearl.
The recess(es) can be relatively flat and lie only in the outer (peripheral) spherical layers (mother-of-pearl layers) of the pearl. It is equally possible to configure one recess, a plurality of or all the recesses in the shape of a wedge, cone or tetrahedron, the tip of the wedge, cone or tetrahedron pointing in each case to the pearl seed or pearl centre.
The term “base of the recess” comprises here and below not only more or less flat surfaces—such as are present for example in cuboid recesses—but also inner edges—e.g. in the case of wedge—or notch-shaped recesses, or also inner tips—e.g. in the case of recesses shaped like a pointed cone.
A preferred embodiment of the pearl according to the invention, which is particularly easy to manufacture, is characterized in that the locking or anchoring means is formed on the underside of the inlay- as a projection(projections), more especially as a wedge (wedges), pin (pins), lug (lugs) or feather (feathers), and in that the locking and/or anchoring means complementary thereto are realized as depressions, especially as grooves or tubular (blind) hole(s) on the base and/or in the wall of the recess in the pearl.
In a variant of the invention having at least two inlays, provision is made for the pearl surface to have at least two recesses each having respectively one tubular hole as a locking or anchoring means, which recesses are disposed spatially in relation to one another in such a manner that the at least one hole at the base of the one recess forms with the at least one hole at the base of the other recess a—preferably practically rectilinear—tubular passage between the two recesses. The inlays provided for this purpose have complementary connecting means to one another as locking and/or anchoring means, pin-shaped anchoring means which are designed as connecting means complementary to one another, preferably on the one hand as a threaded pin (solid or hollow pin with external thread) and on the other hand as the complementary threaded sleeve (hollow pin with correspondingly complementary inner thread). When the inlays concerned sit in the recesses, these connecting means are inserted in the tubular passage and are connected to one another there—in the case of threaded pin and threaded sleeve, screwed to one another. Thus particularly stable anchoring of the inlay on the pearl is guaranteed.
In a special development of this variant of the invention, the recess for the one inlay is extended like a cavity tangentially and radially below the pearl surface, and the cavity walls pointing away from the interior of the pearl are provided with window-like hole apertures, so-called window openings, in which—preferably unmounted—ornamental elements sit. These ornamental elements have the shape of a pyramid or (truncated) cone and are oriented in the window openings in such a way that the base of the pyramid or (truncated) cone points towards the interior of the pearl. By jamming and/or supporting one another and/or being supported on the cavity walls and/or the inlay sitting in the recess/the two recess(es), the position of these ornamental elements in the window openings is fixed.
A further way of accomplishing the object set consists in the provision of a pearl of the type mentioned initially in which the pearl consists of two or more spherical portions, between which respectively at least one disc-shaped ornamental element is disposed, the two disc surfaces of which are preferably congruent with the respect
Stapff Wigbert
Weinmann Gabriele
Arent Fox Kintner & Plotkin & Kahn, PLLC
Rodriguez Ruth C.
Swann J. J.
Weinmann + Stapff
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