Archive for March, 2009
Pretty Perthshire Paperweights
Posted by: | CommentsScottish glass paperweights and especially Perthshire paperweights are always popular and dont stay in my shop for long. I’ve just added some pretty ones to antiquesavenue.co.uk antiques shop as you can see here:
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- perthshire butterfly paperweight
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- perthshire pebble paperweight
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- perthshire millefiori paperweight
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- perthshire paperweight
Northampton needs an auction house
Posted by: | CommentsI see that Humberts are due to close their auction house here in Northampton in April. I am not surprised really as Northamptons only auction house really deteriorated following the take over of Harps by Humberts a couple of years back.
I for one stopped visiting those auction rooms despite them being less than 5 minutes from my home and I am sure many other antique dealers and collectors did the same. As a buyer I found they every last decent item had been sorted out and either moved for sale elsewhere or had an extortionate reserve. Good for the seller? Well not this seller it wasn’t. I regularly placed mixed lots for sale with the former Harps however once Humberts had taken over I found that they sorted and re-arranged my lots into many smaller ones. With their minimum lot fee and commissions they ended up taking over 50% of the hammer price. Down right greedy I thought and have never been back since.
So now Northampton is left without any sort of antiques and collectables auction room. Surely there must be a great business opportunity for the right person. If that’s you do contact me when you are ready to start up as not only do I have a load of mixed lots for you to sell also I will give you lots of publicity here on this antiques blog.
16 ways to tell vintage jewellery from new and antique jewellery
Posted by: | CommentsHow to tell vintage jewellery from new and antique jewellery
Recently I was asked how to tell a piece of vintage jewellery from a piece of new or antique jewellery. With so many modern copies of genuine vintage and antique jewellery around it is important to be able to tell the difference. Reproduction jewellery is fine if you want that and know you are buying it and paying the right price however many prefer the real deal – But how can you tell a real piece of Victorian Jewellery from a piece recently made in the far east?
The answer is not simple but using a combination of different factors, signs, guidelines, clues and hints it can be worked out. I have found at least 16 of these so far – each of these deserves a fuller explanation and needs more pictures than I can give in one blog post and so I will expand on each of them here on this antiques blog over the comming weeks. There is enough information to full a book or two.
Vintage Ring or new?
These are in no particular order of importance. The importance will depend on this individual piece of vintage jewellery being looked at. For example – not all pieces of jewellery have a hinge and therefore that will not be important to most antique necklaces and vintage bracelets but looking at hinges is very important when determining the age of a vintage brooch.
Read More→
Hot Jewels – antique jewellery from Lava
Posted by: | CommentsAntique Jewellery carved from Lava
Seeing on the news about the underseas volcano erupting neat Tonga reminded me of a very unusual material used for making antique Jewellery - Lava from volcanoes. More specifically most of the lava jewellery we see was made from the Lava from Mount Vesuvius in Italy.
Lava Cameo
The Lava is soft and lends its self well to being carved into intricate shapes and as such was used to make a huge variery of cameo jewellery. Antique Bracelets, necklaces and especially brooches can all be set with cameos carved from lava. The Lava comes in a variety of colours varying from white through sludgy beige colours through reddish tones to almost black.
The trend for lava cameo jewellery began in the early Victorian era, ladies undertaking the Grand Tour of Italy would call in at Pompei and purchase a piece of Lava Cameo Jewellery as a souvenir of their visit.
Lava cameos are carved into a wide variety of subjects similar to those found in shell cameos: Classical scenes including Roman and Greek gods and goddesses. You can find famous historical figures and political figures from the Victorian era. A lady could also commission a lava cameo to be carved in her own likeness if she wished. The lava cameos are normally found mounted into gold or silver to form the jewellery
Care of your Antique Lava Cameo Jewellery.
Please remember Lava is a soft material, this is what helped it to be carved so well in the first place. It is soft enough to be easily damaged, I often find lava cameos with their noses a little flat or a curl missing from their hair. Please take care when you store your lava cameos, they should not be placed anywhere where they can knock against another piece of jewellery. Cleaning should be done with a soft dry brush only, lava is porous and if likely to stain if you get it wet. If in doubt I would say don’t clean a piece as you will most likely make it worse.
Sourcing Antique Lava Cameo Jewellery
These cameo pieces are rarer than shell cameos, you will need to hunt to find them. AntiuqesAvenue occasionally has a piece of lava cameo jewellery to sell or you could try hunting around the larger antique fairs – good luck and do send me a picture if you find any and I will add it here.
Lava Cameo charm
Vintage Jewellery – the less fattening Easter gift
Posted by: | CommentsDo you give chocolate at Easter? We all love chocolate but I am wondering how many other ladies are like me and would secretly prefer a gift of vintage Jewellery this Easter? Chocolate is enjoyed for moments whilst vintage jewellery can be worn and enjoyed for many years to come and you dont get all those nasty calories.
Lets take a look at the sort of vintage jewellery which would be particularly suitable as an Easter Gift. How about jewellery with a floral theme?
Here are a few pretties available from AntiquesAvenue:
Vintage Flower earrings
silver flower bracelet
flowers brooch
Hallmarking on Vintage and Antique Jewellery – resources
Posted by: | CommentsThe final part of my guide to hallmarking on Vintage Jewellery and Antique Jewellery provides a list of useful resources.
Books:
Bradburys Book of Hallmarks : The most useful single set of hallmarking tables. Want just to look up a hallmark or read a clear guide to the rules then buy this little book, quite inexpensive too.
Jacksons silver and gold marks: A much more comprehensive guide including makers marks. Expensive and for the dedicated collector
Websites:
Online silver marks Guide to silver marks worldwide – I often use this to look up European hallmarks and makers marks
London assay office
Learn more :
Retail Jewellery courses I’ve completed their Jewellers diplomas 1 and 2 . If you really want to learn in detail I recommend these courses. Expensive, hard work and time consuming.
I do hope this mini series on the hallmarking on antique jewellery and vintage jewellery has been useful and interesting. Any questions ? drop me a line either through this site or on Twitter.
Want to show off your antiques or vintage collection?
Posted by: | CommentsHave you a collection of antiques or vintage items you would like to show the world? If you can write a short article about them and provide a couple of photos then I will publish it here on my antiques blog. If you like you can have up to 2 links in your article going back to your website. This is a free service
Guidelines:
Contact me and let me know what your collection is about, it suitable I will get back to you within 48 hours
The article must be at least 300 words long and up to 600. I prefer one or two photos (.jpg format only)
Let me know which two links you want
This must be a unique item written by you about your collection. You must not have published it elsewhere.
European hallmarks on vintage jewellery
Posted by: | CommentsGetting close to the end of my mini series of articles on hallmarking on antique and vintage jewellery. This piece covers European hallmarks . Hint – if you have a ring do check the outside of the back of the shank for hallmarks, just occasionally you will find European hallmarks here.
European Hallmarks
This is a very complex area and here is just a brief introduction. Throughout Europe each country has developed its own standards for marking precious metals and they also have recognised different standards for example 800 silver has been widely used in Europe but only legal in the UK since 1974. Up until 1999 the UK did not accept any of the hallmarks issues by any foreign country and items imported into the UK had to be re-hallmarked ( see below). We do find however plenty of vintage jewellery made of both silver and gold with European hallmarks and no UK hallmarks. Whilst care needs to be taken how we describe them when it comes to selling them it can be fun to discover what the hallmarks meant in their country of origin. I am not going into these in detail but will provide links to websites which ave listed European hallmarks in the next part of my guide.
Countries which subscribe to the hallmarking convention which allows them to currently import jewellery to the UK without further need for hallmarking are listed in my previous post on hallmarking
European silver
Collectors of vintage jewellery should be aware that whilst some countries made jewellery from sterling silver (.925) others used 800 grade silver which could not legally be called silver in the UK until the 1970s.
Jewellery Imports
Jewellery which is imported into the UK for sale and which is not covered by convention system needs to be hallmarked. This jewellery has the same hallmarks as UK jewellery with a couple of differences – the town marks are different, the fineness reads differently but they are still the same decimals and from 1867 the letter F was stamped in addition to the UK hallmarks. The most important thing is to learn to identify the town marks ( links to these in the next post)