Hello,
I recently acquired this unusual triple-twist silver wrist torc. Unfortunately, I have been unable to identify both its place of origin or maker’s mark. I was told that it was likely to be Scandinavian in origin, possibly Norwegian, but have found no evidence to support this. The internal diameter measures 74 mm at its widest point and the twist is 9 mm at its thickest, tapering down to about 7 mm near the finials. It weighs just over 80 grams.
Your bracelet has its origins in Sweden. The 925 speaks for itself, but the G is the telling hallmark from the town of Skelleftea. The KNN would be the maker and if looked up, KNN is-was used by the following firm from a nearby town of Vannas...
KNN Kingdom of Gold VÄNNÄS 1983-2007, 2009-TD
There should be more hallmarks. One that would give you the date of the marking and the cat's paw that symbolizes Sweden.
I am very grateful for this information, dnl. Thanks to you, I have now had a series of fascinating email exchanges with the actual maker of the torc, Kenneth Norman, who first registered his maker’s mark ‘KNN’ in 1979. The piece was crafted by him in either 1991 or 1992 whilst he was living in SkellefteÃ¥ in northern Sweden. This explains the city mark, which Kenneth calls a ‘fraktur S’ or fractured ‘S’. He lived in SkellefteÃ¥ from 1983 to 2006, after which he located to Vännäs, where he continues to create museum-quality reproductions of Viking era jewellery.
The torc itself is (not too surprisingly) a copy of a 9th or 10th Century Viking torc unearthed in Gotland, Sweden. The original is currently housed in the National Historical Museum in Stockholm. Kenneth was privileged enough to be allowed to make a working cast of the dragonhead finial from the original. All the rest is handmade, using what he describes as conical wire bound with thinner spiral-beaded wire, a difficult and very time consuming process which has a moderately high failure rate (40-50 percent). For this reason he stopped making them, so only a limited number were ever produced.
