Bronce thumbrings

Kviljo · Post by **Kviljo** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 7:27 pm

I recently traded some very nice thumbrings cast in bronce. The master behind them is Gvido from Denmark, who copied them from a horn ring that I sent him. He told me that he would be happy to copy more rings if anyone were interested. I'm sure he would make more copies of my ring too - the opening is 19x22mm oval, and just slips over the knuckle. After seeing and handling the result, I can easily recommend his work to you all. He goes under the name "Austr Gestr" on Facebook, for those of you who are there, and have the e-mail austrgestr [at) hotmail (dot] com. He also makes a lot of authentic bronce, silver and gold details to historical equipment, quite a few of them archery-related too. Well worth a look:

https://www.facebook.com/#!/austr.gestr

Anyway, comments are welcome as always.

Bede · Post by **Bede** » Sun Sep 23, 2012 3:47 am

The rings look very good. It might be useful to know that bronze and brass rings are rarely simply copies of horn or stone rings. Since there are some advantages to using metal, they are made thinner and conform more to the shape of the thumb. Most of the later ones are either convex or concave in lip cross section. Seljuk rings, from the very few I have seen, tend to be concave, while later Ottoman and Persian rings vary between straight and convex.

That famous sketch of how to use a thumb ring is unfortunate because it is inaccurate on several levels. There are some anatomical problems in the length of the segments of the fingers, the ring depicted is not used in the fashion shown, and the opened finger position is rarely used in historical accounts. It really should be retired as a historical curiosity rather than a guide to using the thumb ring.