Chain making — known in French as chaînetterie — is one of the oldest continuous techniques in the goldsmith's repertoire, concerned with the assembly of individual metal links or jump rings into a unified, flexible length of chain. Whether executed by hand in a specialist atelier or by automated machinery in a modern factory, the underlying principle has remained constant for millennia: discrete units of wire, formed into loops, are interlocked in sequence to create a structure that is simultaneously strong, articulated, and decorative. The discipline sits at the intersection of metallurgy, geometry, and manual dexterity, and its history illuminates the broader development of European luxury craft from the medieval guild system to industrial production.

Historical Background

Archaeological evidence places gold chain production firmly in the ancient world. Egyptian jewellers of the New Kingdom period produced loop-in-loop chains of considerable sophistication, and Etruscan craftsmen developed the technique further, achieving fine granulation and intricate interlacing that has rarely been surpassed. By the medieval period, chain making had become a sufficiently specialised trade to warrant its own guild structures in the major Italian city-states. Venice and Milan were pre-eminent centres: Venetian chaînetiers were particularly celebrated for their drawn-gold work, exploiting the city's access to Levantine gold and its tradition of luxury textile production to develop chains of extraordinary fineness. Milanese workshops, benefiting from the metallurgical infrastructure of Lombardy, became synonymous with heavier, more architectural chain forms suited to the armour and ceremonial dress of the period.

Paris emerged as the dominant European centre of chaînetterie from the seventeenth century onward, partly through the patronage of the French court and partly through the consolidation of the guild system under Colbert's mercantilist reforms. Parisian chain makers operated under strict guild regulations governing the purity of metal used, the minimum weight of finished chains, and the conditions of apprenticeship — a system designed both to protect quality and to restrict entry to the trade. The finest Parisian chains of the eighteenth century, produced for court dress and diplomatic gifts, required years of training to replicate, and the speed at which a journeyman could produce uniform links by hand was a recognised measure of professional competence.

The Hand Process

Traditional hand chain making begins with wire drawing: a rod of gold, silver, or other metal alloy is pulled progressively through a series of reducing dies — the draw plate — until it reaches the required gauge. The wire is annealed at intervals to relieve work-hardening and restore ductility. Once the correct gauge is achieved, the wire is coiled around a mandrel of the appropriate diameter to produce a helix of uniform loops. Individual jump rings are cut from this coil, typically with a jeweller's saw rather than snips, to produce a clean, flat-ended cut that will close without a gap.

Assembly proceeds link by link. Each ring is opened with two pairs of flat-nose pliers — twisted laterally, never pulled apart, to preserve the circular form — threaded through the preceding closed link or links, and then closed. The precision of this closure is critical: a gap, however small, is both a structural weakness and an aesthetic flaw. In fine work, each closed link is then soldered, a step that requires careful heat management to avoid melting adjacent links or discolouring the metal. The solder must flow into the join without flooding the link's interior, which would impede articulation. In some chain styles, particularly those intended for subsequent enamelling or stone-setting, soldering is omitted and the chain relies on the mechanical tension of the interlocked links.

The geometry of interlocking determines the character of the finished chain. A simple one-to-one connection of rings produces the basic cable or trace chain. Connecting each ring through two preceding rings creates a rolo or belcher pattern. More complex ratios and orientations yield the box chain, the Figaro, the Venetian ball chain, the Byzantine, and the herringbone — each with its own load-bearing properties, drape, and visual rhythm. The herringbone, in which flat wire segments are woven at an angle to produce a smooth, scale-like surface, represents one of the most technically demanding hand-assembled forms, as each segment must be individually shaped and positioned.

Chain Styles and Their Characteristics

• Cable / trace: The most fundamental form — round or oval links connected one to one. Strength is proportional to wire gauge; the style is used across all metals and price points.
• Curb: A cable chain in which the links are twisted and flattened so that they lie flat. The interlocking of adjacent links gives the curb chain a characteristic rigidity and weight.
• Figaro: An alternating pattern of one elongated link followed by two or three shorter links, originating in Italian manufacture and widely adopted for gold chains in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
• Box: Square-section links connected at right angles, producing a smooth, tubular chain with good resistance to kinking.
• Byzantine / Queen's braid: A complex interlaced structure requiring multiple links per unit of length; characteristically heavy and three-dimensional, associated with Byzantine and later Levantine goldsmithing traditions.
• Rope: Two or more strands of cable chain twisted together, creating a helical surface that catches light along its length.
• Herringbone: Flat, angled segments woven into a smooth, flexible sheet; highly susceptible to kinking and difficult to repair, but prized for its liquid drape and reflective surface.

Industrial and Machine Production

The industrialisation of chain making accelerated dramatically in the nineteenth century, first in Birmingham — which became the centre of British base-metal chain production — and subsequently in Arezzo, Italy, which emerged in the twentieth century as the world's largest centre of machine-made gold chain manufacture. Arezzo's dominance was built on investment in automated linking machines capable of producing metres of chain per minute from machine-drawn wire of consistent gauge and temper. The Italian industry developed proprietary machinery for each chain style, and by the late twentieth century Arezzo's output accounted for a substantial proportion of the global gold chain market by weight.

Machine-made chains are distinguished from hand-made work by the consistency of their links — a quality that is simultaneously their commercial strength and, to the trained eye, a marker of their industrial origin. Hand-made chains exhibit micro-variations in link diameter, solder placement, and surface texture that are absent from machine production. In restoration and bespoke commission work, the ability to replicate these variations is a valued skill, since a machine-made replacement link inserted into a historic hand-made chain is immediately apparent under magnification.

Materials and Alloys

Gold remains the pre-eminent material for fine chain making, used in 9, 14, 18, and 22 carat alloys depending on market convention. Higher-carat alloys offer richer colour and greater resistance to tarnish but are softer and more susceptible to wear at the link closures; lower-carat alloys are harder and more durable but require more careful alloy selection to avoid colour shifts. Yellow, white, and rose gold chains each require different alloy compositions — white gold chains are typically rhodium-plated to enhance reflectivity and mask the slightly warm tone of the base alloy. Sterling silver (92.5% silver) is the standard for silver chains, though fine silver (99.9%) is occasionally used for specialised applications. Platinum chains, while expensive and technically demanding to solder, are prized for their density and resistance to wear.

Repair, Restoration, and Hallmarking

Chain repair is among the most common tasks presented to a working goldsmith, and competence in soldering individual links without disturbing adjacent ones is a baseline professional skill. Historic chains — particularly those predating the widespread use of machine production — may present alloys of uncertain composition and construction methods that differ from modern practice, requiring careful assessment before any heat is applied. In many jurisdictions, chains above a minimum weight threshold must be hallmarked, and a repaired chain that has received new metal may require re-assay if the proportion of new material is significant. In the United Kingdom, the Assay Offices in London, Birmingham, Sheffield, and Edinburgh hallmark gold and silver chains in accordance with the Hallmarking Act 1973 and subsequent amendments.

In the Trade

Chain is sold both by length (typically in centimetres or inches, with standard necklace lengths running from 40 cm to 90 cm) and by weight, with price per gram varying according to metal, carat, and chain style. Hollow chains — constructed from tube rather than solid wire — offer a lighter weight at a given visual scale, reducing material cost, but are more vulnerable to denting and difficult to repair. Solid chains command a premium and are generally preferred for pieces intended for daily wear. In the auction and estate market, antique chains are assessed for condition of the link closures, integrity of the solder joins, and evidence of repairs, with original unrepaired examples carrying a premium over those with extensive restoration.

Further Reading

• GIA — Jewellery History Resources
• Ganoksin — Chain Making Techniques