My pals over at Deadringer have a gallery page up I hadn’t noticed.

Wow, i say. Wow.

Here’s a snapshot – but the page has so much more, each thumbnail clickable to see a close up.

Want. It. All.

The Deadringer Classic remains the gold standard for skull rings. There is none finer, and i truly don’t think a finer skull ring is possible; but the thing that pleases me is that they’re keeping up that incredibly high artistic standard, AND they’re adding new stuff, AND they have a site that does justice to the product. So many vendors have great stuff ill-represent on their web sites; Deadringer has a site that kicks ass.

Evidently they also have some new stuff due out in the next few weeks so I’ll be watching.

Keep it up, Mark and Steve.

I’m lucky I don’t live near where Tony Creed works and sells. Not only would I always be hangin’ out at his studio ’cause I like watching jewelers work (and cause he’s fuckin’ cool), but I’d be in hock to my eyeballs because I’d be buyin’ one o’ everything he makes.

This is the current object of lust:

Thing is, i’m not a christian, so as a general rule I don’t wear crosses. Same as I don’t wear hindu or muslim or jewish buddhist or any other strictly religious symbols. But I do make exceptions; I used to wear a celtic cross dangle on my earring, and I have a Voudou veve pendant that speaks to me as a sort of diver’s lucky talisman. I won’t tattoo such symbols on me, but with jewelry, once in a while, I’ll go with it. I’ve never really wanted a cross ring, and as much as I like, for example, the german Iron Cross, I don’t have much with that symbol on it either (maybe one or two shirts).

This one though – i dunno. It just works. Maybe it’s just that FTW quality that all of Tony’s work has.

Damn, I need to get me another job just to fund my silver habit. This is worse than drugs.

In my never-ending quest to cover my entire body – or at least my entire hands – with silver, I’ve acquired a couple more rings.

And again, these are due to the generosity and genius of my friend Julian Lamb of Ruby Crush; Julian, I hope you’re selling some of these, because I love them.

So first, this one – which is mine all mine – and then the other, which, alas, I must give back.

(click for a bigger view)

This is the big brother to my first Ruby Crush ring, and like that, it is a thing of exquisite workmanship. Julian’s a true artist. This one, though, is special. Not just special as in ‘it looks like a wild screaming lunatic’, though it does, and that alone makes it stand out in a field of crazy-lookin’ silver skulls. But it’s also special in that Julian – again, a gesture of generosity – carved my name into the skull in elegant old-english characters. I don’t think the photos above really do it justice, it’s hard to photograph silver with a little hand-held digital snapshot camera. The lettering, though, is just stunning. I’m not sure if he did this by hand, or if he used some sort of stamp, but whatever he did, it looks great. Honestly, I’ve not even worn this ring though I’ve hard it nearly a month. It somehow seems too good to wear and fuck up. Because that’s who I am, as soon as I put it on, it’s gonna take abuse.

Julian’s a truly gifted man; I’m hoping some of you skull collectors order pieces from him. He’s also a hell of a nice guy.

But wait, there’s more.

Read more “Fist fulla Elvis”