Antique jewelry glossary

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Hammering

A process used in making gold jewelry by which the metal is beaten (alternately with anealing) to stretch and planish it in order to produce sheet metal, to make flat disks or plaques, and sometimes to alter the flat parts of some cast pieces. It was a process greatly used in making pre-Columbian jewelry, the tools used being hard unhafted stones.

From: An Illustrated Dictionary of Jewelry, autor: Harold Newman, publishers: Thames and Hudson