Posted on 02/05/2017 9:03:58 PM PST by Swordmaker
An ingenious masterwork created by precision watchmakers in Geneva, covered in diamonds and pearls
Video Of Exquisite Antique Musical Singing Bird Pistols
Estimated value when put up for auction $2.5 to $5 Million. . .
These are not actually pistols as they do not shoot, but are actually music boxes that pop out a mechanical robot bird covered in feathers that moves and sings like a real bird. Made of gold and covered with pearls and diamonds there are only FOUR known single examples like them and only one set in a pair in the world known to exist.
Beautiful....
Diamonds and pearls which of course are critical to the speed and accuracy of the bullet.
It’s not a gun.
Looks like a gun...
Not everything that looks like a gun, is a gun. Watch the video. On the other hand I wouldn’t point one of these at a cop!
My thoughts exactly. Touche.
By the way, do you think those things are made by someone with a little too much time and money on their hands? The entertainment value per cost and satisfaction value seems a little one sided. Blame it on my lack of appreciation for the finer things in life, I suppose.
Such things were usually made as gifts from one monarch to another for State visits. They often would take up to a year of work to make and the artisans were sought after by the fabulously wealthy to have them make lesser complicated ones for them. Faberge is one such maker who sold to the Czar of Russia and to the English Kings.
There’s a very long history of creating intricate clockwork mechanisms in that region. It can be as simple as an actual clock or watch, or as elaborate and whimsical as this. Some of the cuckoo clocks from neighboring German-speaking areas can be quite startling and ingenious. Such things are prized for their craftsmanship, beauty and sometimes even humor, not their utility.
It just reminds me that too few kings were executed by the populous for wasting their money.
I understand art and ingenuity, but encrusting it with diamonds and pearls seems a little excessive. Vincent Van Gogh died poor, and his paintings are worth millions now. No diamonds needed.
Diamonds aren’t “needed” on anything outside of a few industrial applications, truthfully. But, they’re beautiful and so they’re wanted. To each his own, if you find it excessive then to you it is. Don’t buy any. Kinda cool how that works, isn’t it?
Apart from their cost, diamonds are in fact beautiful. Their dirty little trick is that they have a higher refractive index than just about any other crystalline substance, which is what makes them “sparkle”. And the covalent bond holding the lattice structure together essentially makes a whole diamond one gigantic molecule, which is what makes them so hard. I’d like to have a 10 carat one just to look at and another to sell.
While I do truly love automata, I’m having trouble getting my head around the need for two matching examples being sold as a pair.
Ostentatious exhibition. You, cousin have only one, while I have a cased, matched pair! So there, take that!
It is items similar to this which got Walt Disney to start thinking about what later became known as “audio animatronics”.
I have a 15.45 carat solitaire black diamond ring I wear. . . Truth. Rose gold and Tungsten Carbide. My girlfriend has a 6.5 carat black diamond with 28 champagne diamonds in yellow gold I designed for her. They're our "unmarriage" rings.
I designed them, provided the stones, and had them made by AK jewelers in Sacramento, CA. I have a larger black diamond I trying to figure out what to do with. . . It's 92 carats. . . about an inch and an eighth in diameter.
I'm thinking gearshift knob, cane topper, maybe club knob! Got any other ideas?
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