Glenn and all,
The crown was made in 1911.
It was altered in 1914 to make the 8 half-arches detachable. Quoting from The Crown Jewels 1998 in 2 vols -
"The delicate silver wires and strips comprising the structure of the Crown are laminated with gold and braced by a later inner gold frame, added in 1914 when the arches were made detachable."
No pics have emerged of the Queen Camilla version of the crown alone, as far as I have found, for us to get a good look at it.
The links for the Tower do not include it - at time of posting this.
We were told that 4 of the 8 half-arches would be removed.
Otherwise there has been a distinct lack of information about all that was done to make the Queen Camilla version.
In the media pics we can see 4 complete half-arches.
So the inner gold frame would have been reduced too.
But below the curled tips of the half-arches is a second lower tier of curled tips.
I assumed this second lower tier was made by cutting off the ends of the missing half-arches.
So maybe I was wrong. Maybe this second tier was made specifically for the Queen Camilla version and there was no cutting.
Maybe the crown can be restored.
I sincerely hope so.
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