Christmas Gift Guide: Part 1
Christmas Gift Guide: Heraldic Jewelry for Every Member of the Family, part 1
For Him: The Gift a Man Keeps for Life
Most of the gifts we give at Christmas are gone by spring. The sweater gets stretched, the gadget gets replaced, and the bottle of whiskey doesn't make it past New Year's. Every so often, though, a gift arrives that a man will still be wearing thirty years later. A signet ring bearing his family's crest is one of those.
There's a long precedent for giving something lasting at this time of year. At the Tudor court, the big exchange of gifts happened on New Year's Day, and it was taken seriously enough that the gifts were written down on long parchment lists called New Year's Gift Rolls. Several of the rolls from Elizabeth I's reign still survive. Jewels and goldwork appear on them again and again, given by courtiers who understood that a gift made of precious metal says something a gift of food or cloth never could.
A crest ring works the same way. For centuries a signet ring was a man's signature, pressed into hot wax to seal his letters and prove they came from him. Giving one today carries a little of that weight. You're not handing him jewelry for its own sake. You're handing him his family's mark.
For a father, a raised crest ring tends to be the classic choice, with the design standing up from the face of the ring so it catches the light. For a younger man, an engraved ring, where the crest is cut down into the metal, often feels more understated and sits comfortably with everyday clothes. Both come in oval and square faces, and the square face gives a bolder look on a larger hand.
If a ring feels like too personal a guess, crest cufflinks are a natural alternative. They suit the man who wears a suit to work, the one with a wedding coming up, or the one who simply likes to dress well for Christmas dinner. They also solve the question of ring size, which we'll come back to later in this series.
Metal matters too. Sterling silver gives the crisp, bright finish many men prefer, while 10, 14 and 18 karat gold carry that unmistakable warmth. There's a quiet heraldic logic to either choice. In heraldry, gold and silver are the two metals, called or and argent, and every coat of arms is built on the contrast between metal and color. Whichever he wears, he's wearing one of the two metals his ancestors' arms were painted in.
The best part of this kind of gift is what happens after Christmas. A crest ring gets noticed, and people ask about it. Every time someone does, he gets to tell a little of where his family came from.
In Part 2, we'll turn to the women in the family, and to a heraldic tradition that gave them a shield shape all their own.
