It was the small "golden" tubular shape of spent 22 caliber casings that first caught my eye. My father belonged to a pistol club and I would sometime find a handful of empty casings on his basement workbench after a meet. It was many years before I started making jewelry, and the first use I put the casings to was ornamenting a headdress that was one of my earliest attempts at ancient Egyptian-style adornment.

The method I eventually developed to prepare the casings for stringing (a bit of string and glue in the open end) suited them for use in radiating rows in structured collars.

Although the multi-strand shebyu (gold-of-honor) collar from the burial of Psusennes I at Tanis is composed of lenticular-shaped beads, the tubular casings produce a similar visual effect.

1) Casing full collar modeled by Kim Ameen.
2) Brass casings (22 caliber), plain and patinaed.
3) Gold collar (single unit representing five shebyu / gold-of-honor necklaces) from the burial of Psusennes I at Tanis (image copied from: Jewels of the Pharaohs, Cyril Aldred, 1978, figure 104).
4) Patinaed casing short collar available at www.wadibijou.com (click link to see details).
5) Egyptian-style headdress modeled by Mary S. (graphics version of scanned color negative).
6) Patinaed casing short collar modeled by Kaisa (photograph by David Schler).