Why is nothing easy?

December 1, 2005 12:36 PM

Earringfilter: good god, why are there so many?

Just how hard can a gold hoop attached to a gold ball earring with a post back be hard to find?

My mum’s “everyday” earrings were damaged last year after she put them in her handbag. I want to replace them. A gold ball post earring, from which dangles a single gold circle about 1½“ in diameter. Absolutely nothing fancy or special, just those two elements. Doing a search with various combos of “ball” “hoop” “drop/dangle” “post” et al provides a million earrings…of which the first few thousand aren’t even close. My google-fu filter needs work, but in the meantime, I’m ready to give up finding them. It doesn’t help that I hate shopping for jewelry. Has anyone seen these online anywhere?

posted by ohcanireally to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (16 answers total)

Do you have a picture you can post?
posted by platinum at 12:45 PM on December 1, 2005

I'm guessing you're looking for something like this, but without the hoops being bent, or this without the extra hoops?

My suggestion is to play around a little on Amazon's jewelry store to see if you can find anything close. If worse comes to worse you can always get one like the one with extra hoops and use some jewelry pilers to remove some of the extra dangly bits. :)
posted by MsMolly at 12:58 PM on December 1, 2005

Best answer: There's this, with three hoops inside each other.
posted by leapingsheep at 1:51 PM on December 1, 2005

How much do you want to spend? For $200 and a little blue box, you can get these or these - neither of which are exact (I looked through all the options for you), but which are close in terms of scale and balance to the ones I imagine she had. Give her new favourites!
posted by fionab at 2:33 PM on December 1, 2005

This is amazing, I can see in my head exactly what you're looking for and you're right, they seem non-existant on the internet!

This
is the closest "motherish" one I could find, and it's got a bit of a twist to it with the extra link.

Or this

Or how about square (but they look enormous to me)?

Aha! I believe the term you are looking for is doorknocker earrings.

How about these?
posted by like_neon at 2:43 PM on December 1, 2005

Are these or these (without the diamonds) getting closer?
posted by fionab at 3:14 PM on December 1, 2005

Response by poster: MsMolly: You know what I'm talking about. The first one you listed is right structure wise, and yes, there's no bend in the hoop. My Amazon search turned up more than 1200 items...at 28 items a page, my patience ran out at page 23.

leapingsheep: those would be perfect, were it not for the inside hoops.

like_neon: no, not doorknockers. The hoop should actually swing free, below the earlobe.

An aside why she liked them so much (and this is embarrasing)...my dad saw Appolonia wearing them in the Prince movie Purple Rain, and said they were the reason he kept staring at her: because her "earrings" were so nice.
posted by ohcanireally at 3:23 PM on December 1, 2005

Another option.
posted by fionab at 3:25 PM on December 1, 2005

Here are some cheap silver ones that look pretty close - not gold though! Hang in there!
posted by fionab at 3:33 PM on December 1, 2005

eBay - not perfect.
posted by fionab at 3:40 PM on December 1, 2005

Best answer: You know, ohcanireally, if you get desperate, it looks like it would just take a couple of quick snips to cut out the inner rings.
posted by leapingsheep at 3:42 PM on December 1, 2005

Apollonia + earring shots:
Apollonia 1
Apollonia 2
Apollonia 3
Apollonia 4
All SFW by the way. (In the NSFW she's not showing off her "earrings" so well.) Tell us which of these, if any, is right.
posted by Aknaton at 6:24 PM on December 1, 2005

Both of these are pretty as are, but would be a cinch for a jeweler to fix for you. Or email the eBay poster and ask if he has what you're looking for, and if so, to POST the auction - don't pay him offline because then you have no recourse.
posted by fionab at 7:02 PM on December 1, 2005

This is not strictly what you're asking for, but back in the day (aka high school), we would wear two earrings in one hole -- one ball, one hoop. The ball would have a post back, and the hoop would have one of those neat catch things. The posts were so thin it didn't have a gauging effect at all; the only problems would come from the size/weight of the hoops.

This was so prevalent that I didn't realize until just now that they actually made hoops-attached-to-studs. This technique may be a temporary solution for her...?
posted by booksandlibretti at 8:36 PM on December 1, 2005

Hello? Where did you go? This drives me nuts...
posted by fionab at 7:06 AM on December 2, 2005

Response by poster: After wasting a weekend doing an exhaustive search, I finally just ordered the pair in leapingsheep's answer. (Overstock.com.) They're not as heavy as I'd like, but I'll take a pair of tinsnips to them and just hope they don't bend. Thanks to everyone for your suggestions.
posted by ohcanireally at 3:47 PM on December 5, 2005