Hello Everyone Who can tell me more about this old rosary box. What do the characters on the box stand for? Could it be silver stamps? How old could this box be? The only thing I can say is that the prayer rosary in the box once belonged to a soldier.
Hello, if you can, go back an edit your photos to "FULL IMAGE". https://www.antiquers.com/threads/posting-a-thread-and-uploading-pictures.15990/
The characters look a bit like Greek alphabet to me. But what they say? I'm clueless. If, by silver stamps, you mean assay or maker's marks? I'm thinking not since they appear on the front.
Yes, the letters are Greek. The Madonna on the box is the Οδηγήτρια or Hodigeitria, we call her Maria van Altijddurende Bijstand. The original is said to be one of the icons painted by saint Luke (Lucas). The top letters are the abbreviation of Mother of God. The angels are the archangels Michael and Gabriel. The one on the right carries the cross. Jesus looks over his shoulder to the cross, a sign of things to come. This posture of Jesus is a characteristic of the Hodigitria Madonna. The box was made for a full rosary (with beads). The rosary is a rosary ring or prayer ring. It is not original to the box. A rosary ring contains only one decade or part of the rosary, the ten beads/balls. Because it has only one decade it is called Faulenzer Rosenkranz (lazy person's rosary) in German. In Dutch it is sometimes called a 'soldatenrozenkrans' a soldier rosary, but that is just a name.
Forgot to add, the Hodigitria was popular for rosary boxes here in the Netherlands, the one on the left was my mother's, she got it for her First Communion, together with her rosary:
Think it's actually Russian, but meanings are the sort of things that have already been mentioned. The ones on the left side pertain to Mary, on the right, to Jesus. This site is useful: https://blog.obitel-minsk.com/2018/03/the-meaning-of-various-inscriptions-in.html
My apologies for the masculine singular. An ice storm here; all the vices of snow without its virtues, with apologies to George Gordon and Boatswain. .
Jeanny, they made these boxes in silver, but also silvertone base metal. Do you have a silver test kit?
Hi Any Jewelry I don't have a silver test kit. I find the whole story around the box very interesting. There is nowhere a silver mark, but that doesn't matter to me. I have my late mother-in-law's box. Through all the information through you, I can state that when she has received this box with her 1st Holy Communion, the box should be from 1928. I think that is very nice to know.
