Brief History of the Locket

Brief History of the Locket

Lockets--jewellery pieces with a compartment to contain small keepsakes--have been around for centuries. They are a fascinating item with a somewhat eerie history. Traditionally, necklace and ring lockets were used to contain medicine or herbs, good luck charms, precious mementos and sometimes even poison. Locket necklaces were symbols of mourning and remembrance, often containing locks of hair or ashes of lost loved ones. The lockets of today no longer have such morbid contents--most often, it's a photograph or two hiding behind that hinged door.

Many people enjoy the searching for antique lockets and all the history that comes with them. There's something about these necklaces that entices our natural curiosity pertaining to the story or secret inside that decorative container--what was kept inside? Who did it belong to? Why it was given?

To create your own story, you can also find many modern versions of the locket necklace. At Slashpile Designs, we've been having a lot of fun making photo lockets these days (you may have noticed our Brass Swivel Locket and our Moon Locket!). We have also been making custom, one-of-a-kind photo lockets, personalized with inscriptions, initials or pierced details. If you're looking for a perfectly personal gift, a locket is about as personal as it gets!

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