AntiquesAvenue has a fresh selection of vintage charms for you, mainly silver charms dating from the 1960s and 1970s including some by the famous maker Nuvo. The selection includes articulated and opening charms as well.

opening silver charm

Included in this fresh selection of vintage charms is an opening handbag charm, an opening baby in pram charm ( Nuvo), an articulated cat on dustbin charm and a Nuvo market stall with colourful crystals.

One of the most unusual charms I have just added is a silver church set with a stanhope ( also known as a peep).  A stanhope is a magnifying lens which covers a tiny picture or in this case the Lords prayer. You look into the stanhope and then can read the prayer.

Vintage charm

The cow jumped over the moon is a line from the Nursery rhyme “Hey Diddle Diddle. I have the cow jumping over the man in the moon immortalized as a silver charm.

Hey diddle diddle,
The cat played the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon,
The little dog laughed to see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the Spoon

What fun it would be to have a whole charm bracelet made of charms representing nursery rhymes. By the way I also have a cat playing the fiddle available so these would make a great start for the collection.

Ive also added some fresh silver vintage charm bracelets over the last few days . More unusual vintage silver and gold charms coming soon.

When you are a collector or dealer in vintage charms  there are some which you regularly come across. For example many charm bracelets have an opening church, a key, a 21 disc, a dog, a cat, a horse, a pair of ballet shoes, a horse shoe and a wedding and engagement ring. There are other charms which you dont often come across. I’ve come across a few recently which I have just seen for the first time and I thought you would like to see these.

Articulated mermaid charm

mermaid charm

Here is a mermaid sitting on a rock with one hand playing with her hair. Her tail is articulated and so this charm will provide a little movement to their bracelet. Have you ever seen this vintage charm before? I haven’t so she is quite well made and detailed. The base of this mermaid is stamped as silver. The mermaid charm measures about 2 cms high plus the O ring and the mermaid is 2.5 cms long.

Moving train in station charm

train charm

A cute vintage silver charm in the shape of a station with a moving steam engine in front. This train engine slides across the front of the station. This is the first time I have had this particular charm available for sale.

Dating from circa 1970s, this silver charm measures about 1.6 cms long

Lady in grass skirt charm

dancer in grass skirt

 Another silver charm I’ve not seen before. This little lady is dancing and  wearing a grass skirt with a necklace of flowers round her neck. You cant see it in my picture but she does have a loop behind her head so that she can be attached to your vintage silver charm bracelet.

This silver charm looks a bit older that the ones I normally offer here , perhaps it 1930s / 1940s. She measures about 2.3 cms high

Charms coming soon to AntiquesAvenue:

Amongst other vintage jewellery I’m going to be adding more vintage charms to antiquesavenue this week, especially vintage gold charms. I’ll be back to show them to you when I have photos. Look out for crystal set gold charms, and articulated gold fish charm, a skeleton in a coffin gold charm and a roulette gold charm.

How old is my vintage charm bracelet?   Charm jewellery is unique in that it is often a personal collection which has been built up over the years. Some of the pieces can be a lot older than others, parts may be new, parts inherited and the bracelet is often added to throughout a persons lifetime. This article examines 5 ways  that can help you decide how old an antique or vintage charm bracelet is.

1. Hallmarks and Makers Marks

Hallmarks can often be found on British gold and silver charm bracelets and vintage charms too. These tiny little marks can be translated in a table to give the exact date a charm or the bracelet was made. The first place to look for hallmarks is on the bracelet padlock. If there are no marks here look on the first large O ring. It would be very rare to find the hallmarks elsewhere on the bracelet .Hallmarks are more common on gold charms but you can still find them occasionally on silver charms especially the heavier ones.

If you find silver charms stamped .925 or gold charms stamped .375 they are likely to be newer within the last 25 years. Silver charms stamped “silver”, Silv”, “sil” or “sterling ” will probably date from between the earlier 1900s to the 1970s. A number starting RD or reg can tell us the date a design was registered and normally a piece of jewellery is made within a few years of the date of registration.

Some makers were active at different times so finding a makers mark on a charm or bracelet does give us a clue.  Nuvo and Chim were both making charms int he 1960s and 1970s. I have been looking for information on the exact dates these produces charms but have not been able to find this.  It is quite possible that some of their charm date form the 1950s and even into the 1980s.   TLM stamped on a charm is for the marker T L Mott who made silver novelties and charms throughout the 20th century up until the 1970s. Many of the TLM charms are from the 1920s and 1930s. Their enamel charms and shields are from circa 1970s.

Note it is most common for vintage silver charms to have no hallmarking or markers marking clues to dating so other factors will need to be taken into account.

named charm

2. Materials

Silver and gold charms can be any age. If the charms are made of other materials it is likely that the charm dates from when that material was popular in jewellery manufacture. For example a Jet charm is most likely going to be Victorian. A bakelite charm from the art deco era ( as is a charm set with butterfly wing). Silver and enamel charms can be any age through the 1900s but most are 1950s to 1970s.

3. Style and Appearance

This is sometimes the only clue we have to dating a silver or gold charm. As most British silver and gold charms we see today date from circa 1950s to 1970s you can learn what the style and appearance of these charms is like and then match your charm to these. Most of the charms from the 1950s to 1970s are well made especially the silver ones. The detail is sharp and clear. Poorly made charms with fudged detail may indicate reproduction, newer charms.

Vintage silver charms from the 1930s and 1940s tend to be smaller than those of the 1950s to 1970s. The bracelets themselves are usually less chunky and the charms more delicate . The detail on these charms from the 1930s / 1940s is often not as good as that on bracelets dating 1950s to 1970s. Charms from this era can have a more art deco influence to the style than later ones.

Victorian charms have a unique appeal of their own – engraved coins as love tokens are usually Victorian or Edwardian.

4. Specific charms and Theme

Sometimes the charms themselves help us to date them. Money charms having pre-decimal currency are from before 1971. Charms used to commemorate Royal events help us to date them accurately too and do those from the British Empire exhibition of the 1920s . Finding a coin on a charm bracelet can give us a date but often the coin is many years older than the bracelet and the rest of the charms.

A charm commemorating the Beatles is not going to date from before the mid 1960s – this type of logic can be applied to other charms commemorating famous music groups. I have seen charms from hovercraft , space rockets, mini cars and other objects which cannot date from before the time the originals were invented.

The popular “Fums up” charm is normally from the first world war

5. Reference works

If all other clues fail to help us date a charm bracelet, it can be helpful to flick through a reference book or trawl through the Internet to help find matching charms.

My favourite reference work for this is Charms and Charm bracelets by Joan Schwartz. This is an American book but much of it is relevant to British charms too. Antiquesavenue.co.uk has hundreds of charms for sale and I always try and provide an approximate date on these , perhpas you can match one of your charms to mine.

Happy charm hunting

Anne

Vintage Charm Bracelet