Posey rings

Long before today's couples were engraving their engagement and wedding rings with initials, dates and short messages, lovers of old were engraving secret messages of passion, devotion, friendship and faith on posy rings.

A wonderfully sentimental early-mid 18th century posy ring, the outer hoop enameled in white and inlay-decorated with scrollwork hawthorn blossoms, the interior inscribed: “Mon bel amour je te donne mon cœur ♡” (French, “my beautiful love I give you my heart ♡”). Posy rings with decorated outer hoops are more unusual than plain counterparts; of these, examples enameled in white are especially rare. Among the British Museum’s large collection of 693 posy rings, only around five are enameled…

In the latest installment of The History Behind, National Jeweler explores the origin of posy rings, one of the first examples of personalized jewelry.

These Posey rings in the Ashmolean in Oxford are suspicously similar to Tolkien's One Ring, I wonder whether they were the inspiration for the inscribed ring? Linked to from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posie_ring

A high carat gold medieval ring with decorations of berries and leaves, Europe, 14th century. weight: 1.7 grams 17 mm. 6 ½ US

. . . The exchanging of rings as tokens of love is not just a modern practice. Posy r...

Detail: Other Gold posy ring, decorated on the exterior with flowers and foliage in relief; the interior with inscription and maker's mark. © The Trustees of the British Museum