Queen Charlotte (1744-1818), consort of George III, was said to have been a good-humored, faithful and lively queen whose legacy stretches far and wide even now. State portrait of Queen Charlotte by Allan Ramsay, 1761-2. Writing in the early 19th century, Allan Cunningham recounted that the Crown Jewels and regalia were sent to painter Allan Ramsay's studio in Harley Street for him to paint from life, and that "sentinels were accordingly posted day and night in front and rear

Every Jewelry collector knows that there is nothing better than finding a Georgian or Victorian piece of Jewelry in its original box. The fitted velvet interior and brightly colored silk-lined lid, the quality leather exterior, burnished by age, the makers mark printed inside the lid. And all the wonderful shapes! Leather boxes shaped and molded around its keepsake, sometimes into quite extra-ordinary designs like, for example, this rather phallic pipe box below... Meerschaum

Male suitors of the period were known to give these gifts of 'friendship' to women they admired. Courtship followed strict rules and it wasn't the done thing to send a token of 'love' at an early stage. Mind you even at the time of his marriage Earl Spencer gave his fiancee a ring of two turtle doves inscribed 'imitons les en amitie' translating as 'let us be friends like them' Equally, women gifted their friends with tokens of friendship, and they developed crushes on other