The ring consists of a triple coil of thick, lozenge-section wire and the front and sides are decorated all along the ridge with punched back-to-back crescents, and small triangles at the tapering ends. The ends are drawn into thin wires wound vertically round the coil in eight turns at the back of the hoop. One of the ends appears to have been broken while in the ground and minor re-alignment of the windings was undertaken by the finder after the ring had been through the Treasure process for the first time.

Surface metal analysis conducted at the British Museum indicated an approximate gold content for the ring of 95-98%, a silver content of 1-2%, the remainder being copper.

The form of the ring is closely comparable with two Viking examples also of gold in the collection of the British Museum, with only two coils each and four to four-and-a-half turns at the back, from Saddleworth Moor (Greater Manchester) and Ireland (registration nos. MME 1915,12-6,1 and 1849,3-1,27 respectively). The form is further paralleled by a distinctive type of coiled silver armring made in Ireland in the late 9th/early 10th centuries and developed from a simpler Viking type (J. Sheehan, 1991-2, 'Coiled arm-rings - an Hiberno-Viking silver armring type', Journal of Irish Archaeology, 6, pp. 41-53; the description of the Saddleworth ring as silver in the caption to pl. 6 is incorrect. Thanks are due to Prof. J. Graham-Campbell for this reference).