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On another forum the subject of "your favorite piece" of jewelry came up. http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/sho ... ular-piece I thought it would be interesting to start a thread about jewelry here. I've always liked jewelry.

I have both ears pierced with two holes. I wear CBR's (capitive bead rings) in them most of the time. But once in a while I'll take two rings out and wear stud earrings. I have one pair that are made up of synthetic diamond and sapphire. I've gotten several compliments from women about them.

I wear 5 rings on my fingers which are made out of tungsten carbide. They are just simple design without any markings on them at all. And I have a tungsten carbide bracelet on my left wrist.

Recently I purchased a "diamond" solitaire necklace that isn't really diamond but Moissanite. Cheaper than diamond but just as beautiful.

I have never cared for jewelry of any kind. Prices are ridiculous for simple self-expression; when I see the prices for a good watch or some bauble I think how many computer upgrades (or skirts!) I could get with that and give it a pass. The only nonfunctional item I wear is my wedding ring (about $60 at Sears 25 years ago for a simple gold band). When I wore watches, I'd just get the cheapest possible junk that told time, because I knew it was only a matter of time (no pun intended) before I lost or broke it. Now I no longer bother wearing a watch because my cell phone has a clock on it.

Whilst I am primarily fond of "functional" bits of jewelry I have had some fanciful pieces in the past, most notably a unicorn necklace I wore for several years and before that a simple pendant which was an old-school stainless-steel disk-drive read/write head. Sadly, the former simply got overstressed after years of wear and couldn't be soldered back together again and I lost the latter (that or it got swiped at some point).

As far as "functional" bits go, I routinely wear two watches (both with 24-hour dials) with one set to local time and the other to UTC; as both have rotating bezels on them, I can trivially keep track of four timezones at once. This helps enormously as computer sysadmins tend to run in UTC and I find it easier to look at my right wrist for that datum instead of at my left and do the arithmetic. One wristwatch was a gift to me from my father during the 1980s; the other was a gift to him from his parents in the mid 1960s.

I am also a major-league fan of pocket-watches, and have several -- most of which have family history behind them dating back into the late 1800s. I have a couple of my own, my father's, my grandfather's, and my paternal grandmother's father's pocket-watches. Most get occasional time out in the field and most of them work almost as well as my more modern pieces. I like keeping history alive.

The only thing I wear that can be considered remotely jewelry is my wedding ring. I don't even wear a watch.

John

Guess I'll have to be the odd one out: I probably have a couple dozen necklaces, six to 10 bracelets, and 10 or 12 pair of stud earrings. My latest purchase is a pair of sterling bangles hammered out by a local silversmith. Everything except the earrings was purchased from one of six or eight jewelry makers who sell at my local street artists market.

You're not alone Stuart G, I normally wear a gold neck chain, wrist watch, wedding and other finger rings, belly bar or ring, 2 earrings and a bracket. In summer sometimes also ankle chain, toe ring or armlet.

Occasionally also a pocket watch.

When I'm Kilted there's also the kilt pin, and I 've got several of them.

Part of this is because I like to make my own jewellery.

Donald.

I'm not a big wearer of jewelery. I always wear a watch (usually a cheap Casio with good multiple time zone functions, multiple alarms and stopwatch functions and a very robust body that takes all the abouse I hurl at it) and my wedding ring. The ring is worn hobbit fasion on a chain around my neck as a direct consequence of having to gather up a friends finger and transport it to hospital with him after he caught the ring while vaulting over a railing.

I do have a number of other watches that get used occasionally, including a long service award from a previous employer (a slim, black and gold Longines) and the self winding "Yeoman" that was a 21st birthday present to my father from his parents. That watch has great personal value as he died before I was ten weeks old, I don't wear it often but it is still accurate to better than a minute a week despite not having been serviced for more than 50 years.

Have fun,


Ian.

I prefer to wear hoop earrings, 3/4 inch diameter max. Love the feel when they swing on my ears.

Also like pukka style or tribal necklaces.

Cheers

Tes

I seldom wear jewelry, aside from a toe ring or two, and anklet chain in the summer, with open toe sandals, and a goth skulls bracelet, and occasionally one of several stretch beaded bracelets collected from various street markets on my various travels. Due to my work, my wedding ring resides in a safe deposit box in the bank. It would get damaged, or cause me discomfort in daily wear.

For me only a 30 year old watch.

John

As an electrical worker I can't wear a lot of jewelry at work, but do enjoy artistic pieces otherwise. Besides two studs in the left ear, a diamond, and this time of year, a garnet, I also wear a pendant. I suppose it could be described as an amulet. It is a 14k pentacle overlaid with silver crescent and talon, on silver chain. I designed it and commissioned it made by a smith in my spiritual community. Its symbolism reminds me of some important life lessons.

I like jewelry. I normally wear earrings. I like dangly ones as opposed to simple studs. I have some lovely sets that garner compliments at school quite regularly.

I also like bracelets but they are VERY hard to find in a size that fits me. Simple hoops sold for the ladies will not pass over my hand to make it to the wrist. I think I need to start looking under the heading of "anklets" to find my size!

Chris

PS: I'm still surprised that nobody mentioned the "fingers made of tungsten carbide."

Working at a jewelry boutique I'm tempted to wear more jewelry than I normally would. Right now I'm wearing 2 earrings in my left ear, a hematite choker that I made, my wedding band, and yes, a nipple ring on the right side.

Like Skirted_in_SF, I too have about a dozen or so necklaces, but only two bracelets, for now. I also have five women's watches which, with their diminutive faces, I think looks nicer with my freestyle outfits than men's watches with their larger, "masculine" faces. But I sometimes wear my man's watch with my freestyle outfits, so I guess you can say that "I go both ways."

Then in June 2013, I finally got both my ears pierced. It was a blast! I went to a tattoo place that also did piercing (I think they all do piercings, don't they?) and the piercer seemed to know what he was doing, as he sprayed the work surface with a disinfectant and put on sterile gloves. Then he carefully measured and marked dots, "targets," for the piercings. He asked me whether they looked OK, but since I really couldn't judge, I told him I had to trust him. Then he looked carefully and decided they were OK. After which, he removed the needle from its sterile wrapper and started the "operation." When he did the actual piercing, I only felt a moment of, not so much pain, but discomfit. There was little, if any blood. He inserted barbell-type earrings made of surgical steel and told me to dribble saline solution over the new piercings a couple of times each day. (I used contact lens saline solution.)

It's supposed to take around six weeks for the piercings to heal, but when my piercings haven't healed after two months, I returned to the tattoo place to ask why. Steve, the owner, said that six weeks was only a guideline and that some people are slower to heal. He looked at my piercings and saw no redness or signs of infection and assured me I was OK and advised me to give the piercings more time to heal.

It seemed I was a really slow healer, as it took around six months for my piercings to fully heal. But once they did, that was when the fun began. My first new earrings was a pair of "fresh water pearl" studs I ordered from Banana Republic. What a kick it was to wear them! My second pair was a silver version I ordered, along with some nice outfits, from Talbots.

When I put them on, I was in a surprise. Namely, the right earring looked like it was slightly higher than my left earring. Did the piercer mess up? When I had my hair cut a few days later, I asked Lily, my hair cutter, who happened to have several piercings, to determine whether the piercer messed up. As I wore the barbell earrings, she looked carefully and then gently pinched the lobes to feel the distance between the earrings and the lobe's edge. She said they seemed evenly marked and pierced. I was relieved, but when I put on the silver studs again, the right one still looked like it was higher by about 1/8 inch.

I later learned, after Googling my situation, that while piercers sometimes make mistakes (especially late-adolescent piercers who work at jewelry stores at the Mall), everyone's body is not perfectly symmetrical. A leg or arm may be slightly longer than the other. Or an ear may be higher than the other, which I decided is exactly my situation, after I carefully looked and saw that my right ear sits slightly higher on my head than the left ear. (Of is it the left ear sits slightly lower than my right ear?)

Live and learn.

I don't wear the silver studs too often, because they made my ears' "irregularity" look more obvious, but I find I could wear drop pendant earrings and hoop earrings with no problem. So, I now have about a dozen earrings. And I usually wear my barbell earrings as "retainers" at the end of the day.

In any case, those who scoff at jewelry, even eschewing them, miss out on one of the great fun of wearing freestyle fashion, which is "accessorizing" outfits, some of which can be "blank canvases," with jewelry. And it doesn't stop with jewelry, as you can also accessorize with belts, scarfs, hats and what have you.

Check it out.

Thanks for reading.

Antonetti

In my original post I forgot to mention that I also have a nipple piercing. I have two toe rings too.