Kristen Baird’s French Flair Ring
Sweet Sixteen
Behind the design of Kristen Baird’s gold Napoleon III coin ring
By Tina Snyder
Jewelry imbued with family traditions is extra special. So when a couple commissioned Kristen Baird of Savannah, Georgia, to make a ring for their daughter’s 16th birthday incorporating a French coin that has been in the family for generations, she eagerly accepted the challenge.
“Marie’s [the mom’s] father came into possession of several 20 Franc gold Napoleon III coins many years ago,” explains Baird. “He worked with a jeweler in France to have a ring made for himself. So impressed with the work, he then had one made for Marie, and later for her husband John. Marie and John wanted to give their daughter, Amelie, a family coin ring for her birthday to keep the tradition alive.”
Unable to travel to France to work with the same jeweler who made the original three coin rings, they sought out a local custom designer for the piece. The first challenge was one of proportions: how to make the 16 mm diameter coin into an elegant size 5.5 ring.
“I knew I would have to curve the coin and raise it up a bit so it wouldn’t be so wide, but I couldn’t raise it too high or it would get in the way, particularly since Amelie plays the violin,” says Baird.
Kristen Baird
Kristen Baird • Savannah, Georgia
To get just the right amount of curve, Baird made a number of silver blanks and tested a variety of angles. She crafted wax and paper models with the blanks, then made one final prototype in silver to ensure the proportions were just right.
“These aren’t really mathematical calculations,” says Baird. “There is a lot of trial and error—what I call ‘eyeball judgment’—to get things just right.”
As far as the design of the ring, the client knew she wanted 14k yellow gold to match the color of the coin—a relief to Baird, who said 14k white gold would not only have detracted from the motif, but also have been very brittle to work with.
After the initial client meeting, Baird designed the ring around some of Amelie’s favorite things. For example, she incorporated the neck and strings of a violin into her sketch. But upon review, the client wanted something less literal, and more in line with Baird’s signature ripple ring designs. “We both felt the geometric coin juxtaposed with my fluid signature design would be a perfect balance for the piece,” she says.
In a nod to Amelie’s love of traveling to the Caribbean, Baird incorporated aquamarines, sapphires, and Paraiba tourmalines into the ring design as well.
Baird says the most stressful part of the ring’s construction was bending the coin into shape. “I only had one shot,” she says. “I didn’t have a back-up coin and I couldn’t anneal it, because I didn’t know the metal content. So I wrapped the coin in leather and used a Pepe ring bender, trying to get the curve I had in my silver sample in one hard push. Fortunately for me, it worked!”
To ensure the coin wouldn’t rattle in its organic setting, Baird built oversized prongs into her ring design, which would be cast in 14k yellow gold. “One of my biggest pet peeves is rattling in a ring like this,” she says. “I cast the prongs really big to ensure I had enough metal to crank them over and lay them down on the coin. I also added a bit of silicone when setting the coin, which acts as both a shock absorber during setting and a cushion to grip the coin in place to prevent rattling.”
In the final ring, the prongs look less like traditional prongs, and more like design elements that hold the coin in place. The back of the ring is open, exposing the markings on the coin as well as reducing some of the weight.
The newest addition to the family coin ring tradition, Amelie’s French Flair ring made her 16th birthday extra sweet.