Antique jewelry glossary

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Sand casting

A process of casting molten metal in sand which was used from the 14th century for making certain articles of jewelry. It involved using two adjacent iron boxes which were filled with tightly packed, wet sand so as to enclose a model, and after the boxes were separated and the model removed, the mould of sand was filled with molten metal to make the desired article. This method has been superseded by centrifugal casting.

A technique, used by the Indians of south-western United States, locally called 'sand casting' but executed with a mould made of soft volcanic pumice or tufa. A design is carved into a flat slab, smoked to allow free passage of the molten silver, and covered with another flat smoked slab, after which molten silver is poured in the resulting mould. The casting, triangular in section, is then filed and polished, and sometimes additionally decorated by hammering.

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