The gold fever that transformed cities and towns across Victoria from the 1850s to 1900, produced some very particular kinds of jewellery – not all of it “tasteful” or beautiful, and much of it in stark contrast to the jewellery favoured by the squattocracy and colonial elite of the time. But that makes it even more interesting and valuable in terms of the stories it tells.
From golden teaspoons to literal nuggets of gold embedded in bracelets, and giant brooches featuring miniature diggers at work in mines, much of this bling was about showing off good luck and hard labour.
