A Token of Love

Phew! I am whipped...this past weekend was a lovely but very busy show at the Swanky Plank Marketplace at Rippavilla Plantation. It was the first year they did the show and overall I think it was a success. I sold my giraffe ~ he was a popular guy ~ could have sold him ten times.

While I was there, I had the chance to meet some other great vendors including Kim Hanauer who creates the most amazing, beautiful and unique jewelry from vintage finds.  She has pickers all over the world search high and low for unusual rare vintage finds...Kim then turns on her creative mind and transforms them into gorgeous, one-of-a-kind statement pieces.  She has a impressive collection of lockets, medals, coins and charms that are over 100 years old. Each with it's own history, each one rare.

One of the necklaces she had was a Victorian love token with the initials ESA (I think).  The love token is a coin that has been smoothed one side or both and then hand engraved.  These coins were made as keepsakes from the giver to the recipient and most commonly included the giver's initial on one side of the coin.  For more on the history of love tokens click here.

I was in love ~ what an interesting piece.  Kim then crafted stones and sterling down the chain to make it a piece any girl would be proud to wear.  I immediately fell in love. She told me as a precaution, I should buy it before someone else picked it out, but I didn't. It was the beginning of the show and well, I hadn't made any money yet. I thought better to wait.

Well, the lady standing next to me ended up purchasing MY NECKLACE! sniff sniff.  I could have kicked myself for not buying it.

The next day at the show, Kim brought me one of her special tokens she had been holding on to for "just the right person" and she thought of me! :)  It was another Victorian love token, silver like the first, a bit smaller, with the initials A.R.T. ~ hello??!!! Oh my!! I was thinking ~ wow ~ this one is SO much better because it spells out art and I am an artist! How flipping cool???

Needless to say I wore it and let my husband know it was an early birthday gift..hee hee!  So if you are ever in the market for an unusual piece of jewelry, Kim is your gal.  Check out her Facebook Page and visit her at the shows she attends, you too will fall in love!