What is this? Well, according to Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris, it’s a Victorian mourning ring. In Victorian England, their idea of remembering the dead is a little different than most people think of these days. They would have mourning rings filled with hair from the deceased or even, as in this case, the deceased’s actual glass eye.
The reason I wouldn’t wear this is not because it might be considered morbid or weird–and I am morbid and weird–it’s because it probably doesn’t roll around in the socket of the ring like some kind of whacked out googly eye.
Also, when I first saw this and one that the British Museum was posting about, I didn’t think mourning ring. I thought: skeeball prize.
Same concept, just without the need for someone’s body part. Hence the question in the title: just how many skeeball tickets would it take to win a Victorian mourning eyeball ring? Silly? Yes, but not unbearably silly. Skeeball was invented in 1908 so it could’ve happened.
