Crystal Jewellery, what is it? Have you every seen that a piece of vintage jewellery which  is made of crystal or set with crystal? What is this crystal and what are you buying?

The term crystal can be applied to several different materials and colours;

Rock Crystal

Rock crystal is a natural gemstone being the colourless form of quartz. The most valuable Rock Crystal jewellery is the largest clearest crystals. I will be talking a lot more about Rock Crystal Jewellery when we get to the letter R.

Scandinavian silver ring. Heres a nice piece of vintage jewellery from circa 1970s. This ring is made of silver and set with two rock crystal gemstones which are worn up finger.

This ring carries the makers mark of Kultaseppa Salovaara who made jewellery in Finland between the 1950s and 1980s. This ring measures about 2 cms long up finger . The shank has been made so that the ring size is adjustable an so can be worn on a range of finger sizes

Crystal Glass

Crystal glass is glass made with a high led content ( up to 40% led)which gives it more sparkle than glass without the led content.  A very high led content glass can often appear a little grey in colour and so low led would be considered better. Swarovski crystal jewellery is probably the most famous name in crystal Jewellery today. I recently came across a piece of Swarovski crystal jewellery with an accompanying leaflet which claims their crystal jewellery is hand polished – much nicer than mass produced jewellery.

 

 

Crystal colour

We normally think of Crystal coloured jewellery as being clear

This vintage necklace is made of art glass beads, crystal clear with white swirls inside. These glass beads are joined on a metal chain and with twisted metal beads between. This piece of vintage jewellery fastens with a barrel claps and measures about 40 cms long. The glass beads are in excellent condition , the metal has faded a little over time

 

 

 

 

 

Care of Crystal Glass Jewellery:

Crystal glass jewellery which does not have any other materials attached can be cleaned with a proprietary glass cleaner ( pick a clear liquid not a pink or blue one which could leave streaks). You can also wash crystal and crystal beads can be places in an ultrasonic jewellery cleaner.