Coin Pendants & Frames

A pendant built around the Centenario design, a Mexican coin introduced in 1921 to mark a hundred years of independence. The name refers to that centenary rather than to any particular style of jewelry.

The design occupies both faces: a winged figure of Victory on one, and the national coat of arms of Mexico on the other, each filling the disc from rim to rim.

Pendants using it run from a plain bezel that shows the disc alone to a wide decorative frame that ends up being the larger part of the finished piece.

One face shows a winged Victory with a wreath raised above her head and a length of broken chain in her lowered hand, standing before the volcanoes Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl.

She is the same figure that surmounts the Angel of Independence in Mexico City, which is a large part of why the design is recognised so widely beyond collectors.

The other face carries the coat of arms of Mexico, an eagle perched on a nopal cactus holding a serpent, enclosed within a wreath of oak and laurel branches.

By the rim. A bezel is a collar of metal cut to the coin's diameter with a thin lip standing above it, and that lip is burnished down over the edge until nothing can shift.

The bail that takes the chain is soldered to the bezel rather than to the coin, so every mechanical load on the pendant passes through the frame instead.

Some frames are hinged or screwed so that the coin can be removed again, while others are closed permanently once set. Each listing describes which arrangement applies.

A bezel mount is designed not to. Nothing is drilled, nothing is soldered to either face, and the grip that holds the coin is mechanical and applied only at the edge.

The older alternative, piercing the coin so that a jump ring can pass through it, does alter it, and the result is obvious at a glance as a hole in the field or the rim.

Where a mount is built to open, a coin can be taken out looking much as it did going in, apart from faint contact marks around the very edge.

Both forms exist, and the two are not distinguishable from a photograph. A struck coin comes from a mint, while a replica reproduces the design at a diameter chosen for a pendant.

A third category, the commemorative medallion, borrows the look of coinage for a design that was never currency and was made from the outset to be worn.

The written description is what settles the question. Where the distinction matters to a buyer, that line rather than the image is the one to read carefully.

A rope border does practical work before it does decorative work. It stands slightly proud of the coin's face, so contact with clothing and skin reaches the border first and the design second.

It also resolves a visual problem. A struck disc has a sharply defined rim, and setting one directly against plain sheet metal leaves an abrupt edge that the eye reads as unfinished.

Pierced galleries and beaded frames do the same job in a different idiom, and choosing between them is largely a matter of style rather than of function.

The high points soften across decades of wear, which is the normal behaviour of shallow relief in constant contact with cloth and skin. The recesses hold their detail for very much longer.

The change is slow and spread evenly across the face rather than concentrated in one spot, so a well-worn piece reads as softened rather than as marked or damaged.

A frame standing above the face slows it appreciably, since the border rather than the design takes the rubbing, and wearing the pendant over clothing rather than against skin slows it further still.

Many are, and the form lends itself to it. A flat disc lies against the chest, has no prongs standing up to be lifted and no open work waiting to catch on a jumper.

The considerations are weight and diameter. A large framed piece hung on a very fine chain concentrates the whole load at the bail, so the chain has to be chosen to match.

Where the coin is one a family particularly wants preserved as it stands, occasional wear with careful storage in between is the more usual arrangement, and the frame makes that easy to manage.

One with enough substance to carry a disc without the links deforming where they pass through the bail. A wide flat pendant pulls on a very fine chain at a single point.

Length is a question of where the piece should sit. A round pendant generally looks right resting on the breastbone rather than tucked at the base of the throat.

Rope, curb and figaro chains all suit the form. Each listing gives the pendant's diameter, which is the figure to judge a prospective chain against.

Because the object is dated and specific. A coin carries a design tied to a country and a moment, which makes it easy to attach a family story to and hard to treat as interchangeable.

The construction helps as well. A bezel-mounted piece has few points of failure, and the chain, which is the part that wears out, can be replaced without touching the pendant at all.

Pieces are commonly handed on at a marriage or a milestone birthday, often after being re-bezelled by a jeweller or simply moved onto a new chain before they change hands.