Patriotic ring : Austria-Hungary

Steel ring band. The ring is engraved 'Gold gab Ich fur Eisen 1914 0.S.K.'.

In the early 19th century items of jewellery, similar to this ring, were given in return for donating gold jewellery to the war effort against Napoleon. A hundred years later the idea was revived during the early stages of the First World War. In return for donating gold and other jewellery to the war effort, donors would receive iron or steel jewellery with the inscription 'Gold gab Ich fur Eisen'. In 1914 the Hungarian composer Emmerich Kálmán revised one of his earlier operettas, 'Der gute Kamerad' into 'Gold gab Ich fur Eisen'. Either as a response to the fund raising campaign, or to promote it. This ring belonged to an Austrian family who emigrated to Australia after the First World War.