Romance and the stone: a rare Burmese ruby memorializes a philanthropic woman.(The Object At Hand)(Carmen Lucia Buck)

Publication: Smithsonian

Publication Date: 01-FEB-05

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We don't need Wagner or Tolkien to tell us how powerful rings can be, though it must be said those two make the point pretty convincingly. Most of us have conducted our own ring cycles since childhood. When I was a boy, one of my most prized possessions was a cheap plastic ring, acquired perhaps by mailing in cereal box tops. I want to think that it had some tenuous connection to the effort to defeat the Axis powers late in World War II, a struggle my friends and I desperately wanted to be a part of. I seem to recall the ring had a compartment for secret information, but that may be a trick of my memory. I remember clearly, though, that the ring made me...

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