Goldfields buckle ring, 1856, maker unknown. A rare piece of Australian colonial history, this ring is inscribed "From the Break-O-Day Gold Mine, Bendigo, May 2nd, 1856 C.J. Brown". It is a hefty half an ounce of gold. Credit:MADE Ballarat

"The ostentatiousness is really there, and it's part of Victorian society too – conspicuous consumption. The more you can show off your wealth, the higher you can go up and the more respect you get. So it's kind of a pathway to respectability," she says.

Some of the pieces are fine, delicately wrought numbers with doves and other symbols of Christian faith intricately nestled among ivy leaves and semi-precious stones. Others, like the heavy, early gold brooches of the 1850s, are more clearly tied to the work of mining itself: scenes of miners winching buckets out of mineshafts, surrounded by the tools of their trade, occasionally the name of the mine itself etched in banners above or below.

These early brooches, mostly from when Victoria was in the first blush of its mining boom, are beautiful in their own garish way. But behind these pieces is the story of a nascent "digger pride" that would go on to influence the social history of Australia, says historian Linda Young.

"They are weird because you just don't find the tools of labour, made in precious materials, presented as jewellery. Something pretty or glamorous is usually what jewellery is intended to mean," she says.