I like the look of that first one. I have read the books, too, and it looks like my idea of what they might wear as religious jewelry in the books. It’s a good price, too, since I’d have enough money to still buy a chain or cord for it.
If I get him a chain, what is a good gauge/size for a young man? I don’t want to get something too thin and feminine, but it doesn’t need to be heavy, chest-hairy mafioso thick, either. Since I’ll be buying it online and won’t be able to see the relative size for myself, I need to go by the numbers–usually gauge or mm width. Anyone know chain well enough to give me a reasonable range?
Does he have a girlfriend? If so, maybe something like a locket with her picture or a lock of her hair, or maybe some trinket from her life on a chain, in the same way that some girls will wear their boyfriend’s class ring on a necklace?
The problem is that if/when they break up, the item may now be painful.
I have bought my son a piece of interesting gemstone. Pietersite, or tiger iron are good boy choices because they are such a mythic and high pressure, interesting, well, just non-girly stones. Tektites and meteorites are cool too. Any such stone can be glued to a hanger and fastened to a leather rope.
This might not express his interests, but I think he might like it anyway, a Griever necklace, from the game of Final Fantasy 8. In the game, the hero wears this necklace. And it’s in the right price range, too, though since it ships from overseas, you probably want to buy it fairly quickly.
Interesting–your second link is what I’ve always heard called “Tiger’s Eye.” It’s definitely a cool stone. I may search up and see if I can find any Tiger’s Eye pendants on etsy or ebay…
It’s pretty cool looking–what is it supposed to be? (It’s stylized so it’s a little hard to tell, and I’m not familiar with the game beyond its name.)
Yeah, I’d looked at the official GoT and ASoIaF merchandise before and the unfortunate thing is that the Stark family symbol (the direwolf) is stylized in such a way as to be fairly ugly. It looks like it has fish scales, and just strikes me, personally, as looking kind of lame. Which is unfortunate, because it would totally be a perfect gift. I think if he were to get a GoT/ASoIaF family symbol item he’d want it to be from house Stark. I don’t think he’d want or wear one from one of the other houses, even though several of them are better looking (though in general, as a blanket statement, I don’t like the aesthetic of most of the official stuff. I wish they’d gone with a different artist(s) and a different aesthetic. But that’s just personal taste.)
This thread has been really helpful so far–please keep the suggestions coming. In addition to general advice, my interest has been in particular sparked by these ideas, so if you find some that fit please link to them:
[ul]
[li]dragon(s) in general[/li][li]7-sided star (though the interwoven linked above one is too close to looking like a David’s star–I think he’d end up being mistaken for Jewish all the time, which might get annoying*[/li][li]Tiger’s eye as a material[/li][li]Celtic things, especially Scottish. He’s Scottish by blood and the family is a sept (subsection) of Clan MacDuff, if that helps at all. He’s quite into his Scottish heritage. He prefers the MacDuff hunting tartan to either the modern or the ancient tartan (again, if that matters). He has a huge Scottish rampant lion flag hanging in his room. [/li][/ul]
One thing I was kind of excited to see the existence of, then disappointed in the execution of was the ASoIaF dragon’s egg pendant. The idea is awesome! The reality looks like a pineapple or a hand grenade or something. See it here.
Among his possessions he has that he really likes is a real steel bastard sword (gift from his dad) which is hanging from a wall mount in his room. A decorative dagger or something might make a good gift. He likes weapons. Nothing small enough to be mistaken for a real, concealable weapon–more like something that would be hung on the wall, possibly in a mountable case or something. Just an idea, if anyone knows a good place to get such a thing. Maybe a Celtic/Scottish dagger with a dragon hilt and Tiger’s Eye in the pommel! Haha. Just kidding. (On a related note, I don’t want to get him a Sgian-dubh because he doesn’t have a kilt or sporran or any of the rest of the Scottish traditional dress. When he’s full grown I plan on getting him all of that stuff**, but getting it for him piecemeal right now isn’t how I want to do it.)
*Not that there is anything wrong with being Jewish–it’s just that being mistaken as a member of any group you’re not actually a member of would probably get old pretty fast.
**Or more likely my mom will beat me to it. She’s big into the heritage thing and this year bought him a tartan tie and a cap in the MacDuff hunting tartan. She bought him a kilt when he was really little, like 2 or 3–had it made for him special in Scotland. I wouldn’t be surprised if she beats me to the punch on outfitting him like a proper Scotsman once he’s grown.
[/LIST]
It’s supposed to be a lion’s head, and the wearer in the game admires lions for their strength and courage. I thought of it primarily because I’m replaying the game, but also because I think it’s an interesting symbol that a teenage boy might like, even without the game association. If you want to do an eBay search, you’ll probably get the best results with “Final Fantasy griever”. There are gunblade replicas with Griever, too, but you might not want to spend that much money, especially since gunblades are such a specialty interest.
Another interesting site - lots of very nice replica work. Prices are in euros but some of the items fall into your range. Here’s the Viking page but take a look at some of the others.
Tiger eye is a cool stone, but it is different from Tiger iron. Tiger eye comes in brown and yellow stripes, and sometimes in blue stripes. It is chatoyant, meaning it as that silky lustre. Tiger eye is not that rare. However, Tiger iron is a mix of strands of tiger eye mixed with two other minerals; grey metallic hematite (an iron ore kind of mineral), and strands of blood red jasper. Three times as cool, right?
There’re a lot of hologram pendantsout there, and most are dirt cheap too. I mostly see them at fair midway booths.
Since he likes to use anything he gets his hands on to make necklaces, how about a necklace craft kit?
These guys have a lot of Fantasy-themed jewelry, in particular the only ‘official’ Kingkiller chronicles stuff, in case your son’s a fan of Patrick Rothfuss
Or find a site from which you think he’d like something and give him a gift certificate to that site for thirty bucks. When I was sixteen I truly preferred to choose my own style, rather than go along with what my mother thought I would like. She was sorely wrong all the time.
I’m not saying you’re as wrong as my mother was. I’m just saying he might like to have a choice of his own.
A lot of the cute crafty type stores around here have been carrying these pendents made of a metal bottle cap with something meaningful/cool cut out and placed in the underside the cap and filled with some sort of clear epoxy. If you find someone who makes them I bet they could do a custom one for your kid.
Thanks to everyone for all the great suggestions. It was really hard to pick just one as there were many, many suggested that he would have really liked. I ended up going with this yin yang hologram from the link suggested by kjbrasda because I know he really likes yin yang symbols, and I thought he’d really get into the hologram aspect of it. It was a hit (and it came with two! So if he breaks or loses it, he has another one!) and he immediately put it on (we did presents yesterday because today he left to fly to his dad’s) and has been wearing it since. Thanks for the great find.
