Looking for a Vintage Ring? There is such a wide variety available today.  Looking around the Internet you can buy rings from the Roman era through the middle ages, The Georgian and Victorian eras and throughout the 20th century. There are costume jewellery rings and those made of precious metals and stones. Vintage rings varying in price from about £5 to £50,000 . Genuine antique and vintage rings and modern copies.  Engagement rings, Wedding rings, Cocktail Rings, Dress rings and many many more.

So just   how do you know which vintage ring to choose? Giving this a little thought there are five main factors to take into consideration: What style and age  do you like? Is the ring going to be worn every day or just on special occasions? What stones or colours do you like? Your budget?  Genuine Vintage / Antique Ring or just antique or Vintage Style? 

AntiquesAvenue’s guide to choosing the right vintage ring should help you with these questions. For today we are assuming that you are looking for a decorative ring rather than a wedding, engagement or eternity ring which can have different considerations.

What Style  and age of Ring?

As mentioned earlier, rings are available dating back to the Roman era if you wish to by an antiquity rather than an antique but for today’s wearer of antique and vintage jewellery a ring from the Georgian era or later is the most likely choice.  So you have a liking for a particular style?

Georgian rings are available  and can be still worn today. Most Georgian antique rings are quite dainty and would suit a smaller hand or a young girl. If you are contemplating purchasing a genuine Georgian ring I suggest that you keep it for best.  Most Georgian rings available today are made of gold and set with stones including paste ( glass) , pearls, garnets or may have a locket compartment. These rings need specialist care as the stones have closed backs and you need to avoid getting them wet – not good for doing the washing up or housework in!

Victorian Rings. When we come to the Victorian era there is quite a choice of rings although again most of them we find today are made of yellow gold.  If you wish for a white gold or silver ring you would be better looking at 20th century rings. There is a huge variety of Victorian rings available and some of them do come in larger chunkier sizes or can be adjusted to fit by your favourite jeweller.  Specialist Victorian rings include snake rings, buckle rings and mourning rings. 

Looking about the Internet you can buy what claims to be a Victorian ring from £1.24!  You dont need me to tell you that isn’t real, it doesn’t even look Victorian with a white metal finish and 1950s style aurora borealis stones. A real Victorian ring is unlikely to be less than £50 so be suspicious of anything too cheap. Edwardian Rings tend to be quite similar to Victorian rings

Art Deco Rings are so popular at the moment especially ones set with square cut precious gems such as Diamonds, Emeralds and Sapphires. These are available in yellow gold, white gold, silver and platinum. Here the choice is down to personal preference and budget. Art deco rings are much more modern in style but not as robust as today’s jewellery, I would reserve and rings of this age for best and not for ever day wear.

1950s vintage rings to 1980s are relatively abundant and more robust than older rings and normally all other things being equal will be cheaper than antique jewellery. If you are looking for an every day ring or a ring with modern style then one from this era is the best choice.

Every Day Rings

Want to wear your ring every day? You need something made of a harder metal and with a hard stones set into it with a simple setting. Platinum and 9 carat gold are more hard wearing than silver or 18 carat gold. 9 carat gold will be the cheaper choice . If you are looking for a white metal ring for every day wear then avoid gold as there is no such thing as true white gold , what you see is normally Rhodium plated to give a white appearance and this plating can wear.

Good choices of harder wearing stones are Diamonds, Sapphires, Rubies, Topaz and possibly Spinnels.  At the other end of the scale pearls, turquoise, corals are really just for special occasions as they do not wear particularly well in a ring.

A simple setting is a good choice for an every day ring, something complex can wear more easily and be quite difficult to keep properly clean.

A budget alternative for an every day ring is to buy silver set with a cheaper stone such as quartz , amethyst, aquamarine or tigers eye. This ring oculd then be treated like clothing and replaced once it is worn out or fashions change

Vintage Ruby Ring

 

Stones and Colours

For most colours there is a choice of stone to have in you ring and this will depend on personal preference, perhpas your birthstone, your budget and how robust you need the stone to be. At the cheaper end you have costume jewellery stones in most colours either diamante or Cubic Zirconia.   If you want real stones then there are a few ideas:

Clear: cheapest is quartz, medium is spinel and luxury is diamonds

Blue/Purple: Cheapest is Amethyst  or Aquamarine. More costly is Sapphire. Topaz can be a nice hard wearing stone found in shades of blue most of which have been achieved with a little help from man.

Yellow: Citrines are cheaper than Topaz but personally I prefer a pretty lemon coloured citrine. topaz is harder

Green: Peridots are nice and a budget alternative to Emeralds. Emeralds do not wear well so keep for best. How about Jade?

Budget

As I mentioned earlier there is a wide price range on vintage rings.  You can still get a genuine vintage ring made of silver from about £25 and a vintage gold ring from about £40. With scrap gold at around £10 a gram you will not get anything much cheaper than this today however the gold price affects the cost of new jewellery at least as much as it does vintage and antique jewellery.

For less than £100 you can get a great selection of vintage 9 carat gold rings set with a wide variety of stones. This sort of budget will buy you a nice ring with a large amethyst or citrine or perhaps a cluster of small diamonds.

Vintage or just Vintage Style ring

Of course I personally always say go for the genuine vintage. Why? Well for a start when you have a piece of new jewellery and a piece of vintage jewellery which  are the same except for age then the vintage one is likely to cost less.   But that is not all, it is actually quite unlikely that you will find a genuine vintage ring being worn identically by someone else – your choice is much more likely to be unique. 

Your antique or Vintage ring will still be antique or vintage in 10 or 15 years time. A new ring will simply be second hand or out of date.

Whichever vintage ring you choose they are a lovely form of vintage jewellery and bound to be loved for years to come.  If you need more help do pop over to www.antiquesavenue.co.uk where i will be happy to assist you in selecting a special ring.

 I hope this guide helps. Happy Hunting  Anne x