L'esperance [Book-mark made up of Australian [New Zealand?] gold nugget beads]

ca1875. As found.. Very good.. A Berlin Work book-mark made up by applying a matrix (90 x 25 mm) for the gold to a strip of white silk (430 x 25 mm). The name, "L'esperance" is spelled out with small, solid gold beads, pierced and threaded together. The weight is appx. 0.1 Troy oz.

L'esperance is a solid rock out-cropping in the South Pacific constituting the southern most of the Kermadec Islands north of New Zealand. One can only imagine the story behind this artifact given the series of gold rushes in Australia and New Zealand during the closing decades of the 19th century and celebration of such a dramatic geologic anomaly as L'esperance. See Howgego III, 423-432.