The Magic of Jewels and Charms is a 1915 anthology by George Frederick Kunz (1856–1932), published in Philadelphia by J. B. Lippincott Company as a companion and sequel to Kunz's 1913 work The Curious Lore of Precious Stones. Where the earlier book concentrated on gem materials proper, the sequel extends the survey to amulets, talismans, charms, and broader categories of jewellery and personal ornament associated with magical, religious or protective intent.

Author

Kunz was vice-president and chief gemologist of Tiffany & Co., honorary curator at the American Museum of Natural History, and arguably the most prominent gem-trade figure of his generation. He was instrumental in introducing kunzite, morganite and a number of other North American gem materials to the international market, in assembling the Morgan-Tiffany Collection of American gemstones at the Smithsonian, and in standardising the modern birthstone list adopted by the American National Association of Jewelers in 1912.

Contents

The Magic of Jewels and Charms is organised around themes rather than species. Chapters cover phallic and apotropaic amulets in Mediterranean and Mesopotamian antiquity, the history of charms against the evil eye, lunar and solar symbolism in jewellery, animal-form amulets, plant-form amulets, magical inscriptions on gems and rings, the use of jewels as healing materials in Renaissance medicine, gambling charms and good-luck pieces, and the role of jewels in prayer and devotional practice (rosaries, reliquary pendants, pilgrim badges).

The book is heavily illustrated with engravings and photographs of objects from museum collections and from Kunz's own assembled groups. Sources cited include classical authors, the Talmud and Midrash, the Chinese Pen-tsao tradition, Egyptian funerary literature, medieval European lapidaries (Marbode, Albertus Magnus), and contemporary archaeological reports.

Significance and limitations

The Magic of Jewels and Charms is the broader-canvas companion to Curious Lore and the more eclectic of the two volumes. It captures the late-Edwardian interest in folklore and comparative religion (Frazer's Golden Bough framework is implicit in much of the structure), and it serves as a primary reference for the connection between jewellery and devotional or supernatural practice across the Mediterranean, European and Near Eastern traditions.

As with Curious Lore, the critical apparatus is light: Kunz reports many traditions as received without questioning attributions, and some claims have been corrected by later scholarship. The book remains valuable as an introduction to a field, as a guide to further sources, and as a record of what was understood and collected at a particular moment in Anglo-American jewellery culture.

Modern relevance

For working jewellers and dealers, the book is useful background for understanding the cultural-religious context of antique pieces (medieval rings with inscriptions, evil-eye charms in Mediterranean estate jewellery, devotional pendants in old Catholic estates) and for fielding customer questions about the symbolism of older items. It is in continuous reprint through Dover and other publishers and is widely available second-hand at modest prices.