Clown vintage brooches

There are so many kinds of vintage brooches to choose from, that today I thought I would have a quick look at clown vintage brooches.
Circus life has diminished tremendously during the last 50 years. In my childhood I went to the circus and enjoyed not only the clowns but the lions and elephant performances. Today circuses are still around but many have complied with the times and moved to theatrical and mostly human performances.

Clowns are either loved or hated. Hated maybe because you can not see their true expression and intent behind the face paint? Loved because they are funny and wear brightly coloured clothing.

Here are a few pieces of vintage jewellery of different clowns that we have on the website at the moment.
Very retro and fun to wear on a hat, bag, clothing or as hair decoration. Fun to collect and display in a frame or on a pillow.  

So have a good weekend and don't clown around too much!! 

Fake vintage jewellery on the Internet - Warning

Yesterday I was browsing the list of companies after goggling "vintage jewellery"
Finding several blogs/websites referring to vintage jewellery that were not as described. I though I would just make it clear the difference between real vintage jewellery and fake/wrongly advertised that really should be called -vintage style new jewellery. It would be regrettable for some one to buy what they thought was real unique vintage jewellery; only to find that they had brought a new piece of jewellery available in their thousands on the high street/web at present.

The word "vintage" is an age definition - not a designer or type of jewellery or clothing, etc.
It means that if something is vintage then it is at least 25 years or over and can be up to one hundred years of age. At one hundred years and over it becomes antique.  If it is less than 25 years old then it should be refereed to as second hand.

Most of the long chain necklaces with charms on, are either new jewellery that should be sold as "vintage style" or "vintage inspired". Some sites have used old real vintage components or charms and this should be included as part of the description. There are of course a few genuine vintage necklaces with charms for sale.

Watch out for vintage Bohemian jewellery on EBay, from sellers outside the UK. Much of this is in fact new jewellery being sold at high prices as vintage. Not authentic vintage Bohemian jewellery as the descriptions imply.

Also watch for misleading/fake Sphinx vintage jewellery. The Sphinx jewellery company used numbers on some of their products. But unfortunately many are now attributing any piece of jewellery to Sphinx  - if it has a number on. The only way it can be identified to the company is if you can find an identical piece with the Sphinx logo on. The same applies to many other makers/manufacturers including Haskell, Trifari, jelly belly jewelry, etc. There are unfortunately fake and of lesser quality items being sold as the genuine articles. Care needs to be taken. If unsigned, look at the genuine Haskell or other makers on the internet. Books are also available that takes you through the components used. (E.G. Miriam Haskell Jewelry: Cathy Gordon & Sheila Pamfiloff) Does it look the same quality. Look at the plaque, does it look as though it is different to the coloured metal of the rest of the jewellery. It often looks as though it is not quite right.

Even if the bidding on EBay is high - does not automatically mean this is a genuine item. A vintage Haskell parure or set, sold in the last few hours on EBay US for $750.00 approximately £468.40 with 35 bids. One of the earrings only had a plaque with a signature, which did not match the colour of the back. This set was a fake Haskell.

 All pieces shown are genuine vintage and second hand jewellery.All for sale on our website.
We do have a growing range of vintage inspired jewellery which is all brand new.

Photographing Antique & Vintage Jewellery

Today was an ideal day for photographing our jewellery out doors.
Not too hot and not too cold. Also we have found that the best time is early morning or late afternoon as after 11 am the sun is high in the sky and casts shadows onto the background that we use. Making it a bit more difficult to get the right light.

I love sparkling jewellery, so here is a few pieces that we took photographs of today.

The local wild life just take our presence in their stride. The squirrels just go around us and carry on feeding at the bird table. So do most of the birds, all except the wood pigeons who really are a bit brainless. They dawdle along heading for the bird feeders, and then suddenly see us and take fright. If you look very closely you may be able to see the flock of sea gulls that were circling overhead on our last shoot, reflecting on the black marble background.
This snail decided to move out of the watering can

   

But he was nowhere near my hostas - I hope!!

How to type the copy right symbol when describing vintage jewellery

My biggest achievement this week (and I know its a bit sad) is to find out how to type the copy right symbol
Have wanted to know this every time we describe a piece of vintage jewellery. But it is one of those things that your always going to find out but never quite get round to....

So here is how to:

• press the Ctrl and Alt buttons down at the same time
• press c
• take you one finger of the CTRL button and type in the right side numbers 0169
• make sure its the right hand side numbers as it does not work with the numbers along the top
• take your finger of the Alt key and the © appears

 Magical and yes small thing please and all that LOL

Our most unusual piece of jewellery added this week is this pre owned brooch of a Colt revolver

I think we have added about another 15 vintage brooches this week. Now just need the weather to improve to photograph more jewellery.............
 

Just a few more antique and vintage jewellery photographs from our visit to the Jewellery Quarter Museum in Birmingham

Antique pendant and earrings set

Bit blurred but a tortoise shell and pique (gold inlay) cross

Both photographs above are of carved bone

  Coral and pinch beck tiaras

Well worth a visit to the museum. Wish they had the description of the jewellery a bit more in depth and below the actual pieces rather than trying to find them on the wall charts though!

Latest additions to Jewels and Finery

 Vintage jewellery from Exquisite

Contemporary jewellery in the design of an octopus

 Vintage key ring from Avon in the initial A

Yippee heard that all the new checkout for Jewels and Finery Craft is finally through. Now to get that implemented and can start to sell the vintage beads, buttons and craft supplies from there soon.......

Visit to The jewellery Quarter Birmingham Museum

Recently we went to visit the museum at the Jewellery Quarter. Been loads of times to the Quarter but never got round to looking at the museum. Well worth a visit, especially if you are interested in how antique gold jewellery was made.

The museum is in an old terraced house that once was the working premises of the Smith & Pepper company, 75 to 79 Vyse Street, Hockley. The mark on their jewellery is S & P.
Uncle and nephew, Charles Smith and Edward Pepper, rented one house that Charles lived in and the one next door. Turning their home into a factory was not unusual in those times. In the late Victorian period many people in the Jewellery Quarter did this or rented the front room out for industry. Eventually building an extension workshop in the back garden. Edward Pepper's only son died in WW1 and 3 children of Charles took over the family firm. Eric, Tom and Olive, the three never married or had children to continue the family business and so in 1981 when gold was at an all time high they called it a day. Eric was 81, Olive 78 and Tom 74 giving the 11 remaining employees two weeks notice they closed shop. Literally just shut everything down and left. Ten years later Birmingham City Council acquired the premises and found tool covered benches and a gold making factory suspended in time. Many of the items used were used almost a hundred years before. Every time they had attempted to modernize the workers had rebelled preferring old tradition to mechanism that could have made their life a bit easier.

 This is how they made a cup of tea - in the eighties!! 

     

  Polishing benches occupied by women workers - one of the few jobs they were allowed to do!

Dangerous work as the belts rotated on a mechanism and could snap. It was not unknown to hit a woman in the eye and blinding her.

Stamping pit where one worker spent 60 years. As he became older and more fragile, the company tried to help him with a mechanism that took the weight of the pulley ropes. But he did not like it and continued to use his own strength. Pulling the rope activates the stamping machines seen behind the ropes and the weights stamp a sheet of gold.

As said earlier well worth a visit. My only regret is that the historian's of the Jewellery Quarter tend to totally focus on the fine jewellery produced in that area. But many of the factories produced costume jewellery, buttons, souvenir gifts and trinkets. In fact the vintage jewellery of W A P Watson and Miracle all originated in the Jewellery Quarter. Lambourne and Stratton were also located in the Quarter.

Art Deco Jewelry Jakob Bengel by Christianne Weber-Stober - Jewellery Book Review

One factory that imported jewellery into the UK up to the Second World War, in huge amounts selling in stores like Woolworths was in Idar-Oberstein, Germany. Jakob Bengel produced large quantities of costume or fashion jewellery from metal and galalith. Extremely collectible now all over the world.

This large book has page after page of photographs of the Art Deco jewellery of the 1920s and 1930s from Bengel. Because at the onset of WW2 many Jewish workers downed tools and never returned. The factory retained its history, unfinished and finished jewellery with many order and pattern books, allowing identification and dates of manufacture.

For an introduction to Jakob Bengel's jewellery this book is invaluable. However the translation of German to English and the fact that half the book is in German and the other half the English translation makes the first few pages hard to read. But get past that and the full colour photographs are well worth it.

 Art Deco Necklace Jakob Bengel

This is not the only book available on this subject but a worthy one to have in your collection.

    Purple Art Deco glass bead vintage necklace