I think that it was very much by accident that I fell in love with cameos. When I was a child, I adored change, especially pennies. My mother use to give me all her pennies and sometimes other small change as long as it was smaller then a quarter. I thought all the coins were just fascinating. (A nice little side effect of that was that I amassed quite the little childhood fortune by the time I was six.) We were back and forth between Canada and North Carolina quite a lot so I had a nice mix of coins. I loved how Lincoln’s head was carved into the penny, and I especially adored a specific kind of Canadian quarter that had a horse on one side. I know I said she didn’t give me quarters, but those were always the exception. (If you are curious, those quarters were minted in 1973 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.) I still have one in fact. I loved running my fingers over the surface of the coins and feeling all the little bumps, it was just so cool.

At some point I saw some of my grandma’s cameos in one of her jewelry boxes and I thought “Wow, those are even cooler then coins!” Not only where they carved in relief but they were also two-toned, usually white on black. My grandma probably noticed by utter fascination and she gave me my first cameo. It had a gold tone pin setting and was a white on peach carving a lady’s head. It has been years since she gave me my first cameo and I still only have a small handful of them (most of which she gave me) but they are not something I see that often. I is also nice having a small, slow growing collections of fantastic pieces with a story.

The photo in this post shows my favorite cameo and my newest one, both from my grandma. The one on at the bottom is pinned on my jean jacket (possibly my most worn and loved jacket for that matter) and it depicts a mermaid waving next to a merchild blowing a horn, I am fairly sure it is white and blue agate, I received it for Christmas a couple years ago. My grandma sent the other one to me this Easter. I need to find a velvet ribbon to thread it on (it is a choker piece as far as I know.) I love the classic white on black woman’s head cameo. Almost all my others are pins, so it is really nice to add one to my collect that has a different use.

Anyhow I just wanted to share my little interest with you. I don’t meet many people who collect cameos so if you are out there, speak up, (and nice to meet you!)