Hello all--I thought that I would share an amazing artifact I recently came across in Europe. Below, see a "class ring" from the Пажэский Корпус, or Corps of Pages.
On graduation, each of the thirty members of the class received a "jeton" of the Corps, and also a ring of this type.
Worn on the ring finger of the left hand (the Orthodox wear their wedding bands on the right hand), the ring is forged in steel, and lined in gold--a physical symbol of one of the corps' slogans "Hard as steel, pure as gold." («Ты будешь тверд, как сталь, и чист, как золото».)
The exterior of the ring is engraved in Russian, "один из тридцати" (one of thirty), and the interior with the name of the page and the date of his graduation.
This ring, which we can see is engraved "1891 Н. Мей..." was probably the ring of Baron Nicholas F. von Meyendorf who was the son of Baron Feofan von Meyendorf, General-Adjutant to Nicholas II. I believe Meyendorf did graduate from the Corps in 1891, but I need to double-check with the records at Columbia University.
The only other time I have ever seen a ring from the Пажэский Корпус was on the hand of Prince Michel Cantacuzène, Count Spéransky, who was a member of the Corps in its last wartime year of 1916.
I believe most of these rings go to the grave with their owners. I attach a link to an interesting (russian) conversation about this.
http://sammler.ru/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=889705
