# Religious reliquary



## snoman701 (Sep 18, 2017)

Anybody ever touched anything like this?

It's oddball I know. 

This is NOT one of the nice ones, but I'd imagine anyone who may have actually thought they were getting part of the virgin Mary's veil may have paid enough to get some twisted gold wire. I think these were more popular back in the 70's, when gold was pretty low.




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Edit to add photo


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## goldsilverpro (Sep 18, 2017)

Sure looks plated to me.


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## Topher_osAUrus (Sep 18, 2017)

goldsilverpro said:


> Sure looks plated to me.



You would know better than most!

Snoman, I was going to say the same thing earlier, but Ive fallen into a bad habit lately of just previewing and not submitting.
But here it goes anyways

On the exterior, all the spots around the base you can see oxidation and the base metal clearly coming through.

The little "veil" piece frame is pretty yellow, which would make me think its lightly plated, it just hasnt been subjected to the elements and abuse like the exterior has, since its behind glass.

Yah, gold was cheap back then, but you must remember, if people can save money in production, they are usually going to.

However, some religious articles do have some value. I remember a few years ago, it was in the local paper how someone stole the chalice from a church, and its gold value was estimated in the thousands.


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## snoman701 (Sep 18, 2017)

I'm only talking about the twisted wire, shaped in to almost a horseshoe inside the pendant. It would be a couple of grams at most. The exterior is very clearly, and poorly plated. The pendant itself appears to be brass, though I am awful at telling the difference between plated ware and brass. The exterior reliquary is die cast. 

In this case, I doubt looks mean much of anything...I'm more looking for experience on such a strange object. It is quite common, when relics are sealed by the Vatican, for precious metals to be used in the manufacture of the reliquary. These are high end items, given as gifts. This one however is very cheaply made, but still, I don't know if these were sold on the street corner by peddlers, or still in high end gift shops.


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## nickvc (Sep 19, 2017)

I agree with Jim, always work on the assumption that anything you are looking to buy is junk, which most times things like this are, but occasionally you get lucky but I fear this isn't one of those times.


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## snoman701 (Sep 19, 2017)

Well, I didn't buy it, it was given to me....a reward for my breadth of useless knowledge. I guess most people don't know about relics, I've always found them interesting, bordering on creepy. 

Either way, I'm not too concerned. I've already written the Ebay listing. If it sells, it sells. If it doesn't, I'll take it apart and add it to the plated crap to process pile.


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## scrappappy (Dec 31, 2017)

Snowman, that's an interesting piece. If you can share what happened to it I would be interested. The paper inside looks like it would have been authenticated recently by the Vatican, if authentic. Things don't look right about it to me, but you never know. Hope things worked out.. relics are an interesting subject.


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## snoman701 (Dec 31, 2017)

Sold it on Ebay...I think it went for $192


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## scrappappy (Jan 4, 2018)

Thanks snoman, good deal. Sounds like someone will restore it, if authentic. I agree the stuff is borderline creepy. But it's such a part of Catholic tradition that it's good it was made available to people looking to venerate. Every Catholic church is required to contain a relic.


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