Vintage Jewelry, Estate Jewelry & Antique Jewelry — The Differences & How to Tell Them Apart
The beauty of second-hand jewelry, an introduction to estate, vintage and antique jewelry, and what to look for.
Without going too deep into modern marketing theories, we cannot but notice that the attention towards vintage — in its every form — is rising day by day. And the main culprit of this resurgence of the style of the Forties and Fifties is the changing taste of the new consumers.
As our world progresses into the digital age, more and more transactions start and end on the web, dislodging the years-old traditions of buying and selling. And more important, what really changes are the referents of this movement: that is, the customers.
This era marks the entrance of a new cluster of consumers into the buying arena, which is quite different from their predecessors: the Millennials.
They could come right after the old Gen X, but the Millennials have changed much of their approach towards consumption. Evolving from an “aspirational” way of buying stuff — that is, aspiring to buy it because it made people feel fulfilled — the Millennials instead are displaying an “experiential” trait — so, not focusing on the possession of the object itself, but rather on the kind of experience the object evokes in them.
Which is a totally different — and very interesting experience.
Second hand, vintage and antique objects are returning to become the point of reference in every category of the business. Talking about jewelry, second-hand jewelry, and vintage jewelry, especially the one coming from the most important and respected brands of the luxury business, is sure to provide an amazing source of inspiration for the most hard-core Millennial.
The return to the endless seduction of old shapes, and of the stories which are bound to remain unknown which accompany the objects, is one of the main attractions of vintage jewels. Also, the perfectly imperfect shapes, which were much more handmade than what you would find in modern productions, and the use of old-style and somewhat exotic materials make the return to old jewelry a sort of welcome comeback to the fold of a more reassuring era which seemed to promise much, and to deliver even more.
In this way, a return to the traditional, vintage shapes of branded second-hand jewelry makes the act of finding them like a sort of homecoming, the discovery of an imaginary legacy tying us to the roots of elegance, and rendering us much more concrete and grounded.
And the activity of the great jewelry creators, which accompanied with their iconic models all the most important happenings of the 1800s and the 1900s, have left us a spectacular array of beautiful pieces, which have been treasured through the generations, and are now ready to take again their role as elements of beauty and distinction, adorning their wearers with their endless charm and beauty.
Buying second-hand jewelry: the why’s and how’s.
The main reason to buy second-hand jewelry — especially branded one — is that in this way you are buying much more than a simple ornament.
But for sure we must — before everything else — explain a little bit more about what is vintage jewelry, and how to correctly appraise it.
1. Properly dating antique jewelry
To start in our quest, let’s begin from the most simple consideration: everything that is not new is used/second-hand/vintage/antique. But, of course, a 100-year-old Art Déco jewelry piece has a much different value than some other that is just ten years old, apart from the materials used. So, the first step is, therefore, to define what is the age of a jewel. And this is why buying branded jewelry helps you much: some collections made by famous brands are precisely identified in time, so you can be very much spot-on in your assessments.
If you are not an expert of the history of jewelry, you can make a search on the Internet for reference points or jewels that look like what you want to buy. In this way you can determine the age of the jewel with an approximation of 10–20 years — and this would be a very good result.
For example, two styles that have influenced the world of jewelry for a long time are Art Nouveau (about 1900–1925) and Art Déco (about 1925–1940).
Auction sites such as Sotheby’s or Christie’s can also help you because they keep images of jewelry that have been properly dated by experts.
2. Style inspirations — and imitations
It will happen sometimes that you will find jewels which are newly made, but which style is inspired by the past and are sold — especially by the less trustworthy dealers — in an ambiguous way as if they were ancient.
The Art Déco style, for example, has been in fashion for a few years now and many jewelers have started to produce pieces in this style all over again. Or a shady retailer might try to sell you a freshly made cameo, which looks similar to an antique one, as a vintage jewel, when it is just a reproduction of an antique piece.
Fortunately, finding out if a jewel has a story is usually quite simple: it often requires a little bit of attention. Just look at it very carefully, perhaps using a magnifying glass. A jewel that is many years old almost certainly has small marks on the metal, sometimes even small scratches on the stones, indicating they are not new, but used.
3. Second hand, vintage and antique: what are the differences?
A used jewel is not necessarily antique or vintage: it has simply been used before. Perhaps very little: there are examples of used jewelry, which looks like it is new.
This is the case, for example, of rings received as a gift but which have never been worn because the would-be wearer did not like them — or, as it sometimes happens, of engagement rings that return to the jeweler after the relationship has broken. Of course, in this case, this would not be a vintage jewel, but a contemporary one.
Broadly speaking, a piece of jewelry is considered vintage if it is at least 30–40 years old. In practice, if a jewel was made before 1980 can be safely considered as “vintage”.
But the word “vintage” is a generic definition: it can be defined in this way even a jewel in Art Déco style of the Thirties, although, of course, it is always more appropriate to precisely define the period in which the piece was made. So, if the seller simply defines a piece of jewelry as “vintage”, take a long, hard look at the object and ask more questions about when it has been effectively manufactured.
When can a jewel be defined as antique?
As above, there is no precise date, but to be considered antique, a jewel has to be more than one hundred years old. Of course, to define a jewel as antique you need some evidence that defines the date when it was created.
Pay attention to the definition of “antique style”, which simply means that the jewel is made following a certain style. A Belle Epoque styled jewel was not necessarily created at the end of the 19th century, but it can indicate that it just reproduces its typical design.
4. Precious metals: brands, marks, titles and where to find them
Let’s start from a basic point: pure natural gold is not used in jewels because it is very soft. Soft means easy to bend — a bit like lead. This means that it was impossible — for example — to securely retain gemstones with pure gold.
It was for this reason that since ancient times, pure gold has always been mixed with other, more resistant, metals to create alloys which could be used to make jewels.
The quantity of gold contained within is expressed as a percentage of a thousand units.
Let’s take as reference the pure gold as “1000 gold” which — as said — is very soft; let’s process this pure gold adding other metals, precisely for a 25%, the final result will be: 25% various metals, 75% pure gold. When the metal is formed by 75% of pure gold is called 18kt gold or 750 gold, that is, 750 thousandths of pure gold.
This is the composition of the gold which is commonly used in modern jewel making.
75% of the metal — as said — is pure gold, but what lies inside the remaining 25% of the alloy? Generally, you will find metals such as copper, silver, and others, in percentages, which vary.
The composition of yellow gold is usually 75% pure gold, 12.5% silver and 12.5% copper (this is the classic gold that we all know, used in wedding rings).
The composition of white gold is typically 75% pure gold, while the remaining 25% is composed of silver or palladium.
The composition of pink gold is instead 75% pure gold, 5% silver, and 20% copper, which gives it the pink shade which is so fashionable in recent years.
To properly mark the “title” of these alloys, so the quantity and quality of precious metals inside the jewels, the manufacturers in time have developed a system of marks which are invariably printed in secluded areas of the jewels, so ensuring they are “legit”.
So, where do we find the marks that identify the quality of gold and its origin?
All precious jewels have an identification mark of the quality of the metal with which the jewel is made and — often — bear a small plate affixed inside the jewel that identifies its manufacturer.
The metal identification mark is the classic 750 mark inscribed in a geometric shape, which changes for the different metals: we find it in 90% of modern jewelry. The 750 brand identifies that the metal is 750 gold, therefore 75% pure gold — known also as 18kt gold.
But what happens if the jewel we are examining is not made recently?
Vintage jewels, especially of foreign make, might have a different quantity of gold inside the alloy — but don’t worry: the reference system is still the same, that is, it will show the percentage of gold contained within as expressed in thousand units. So, if you find a 585/000, you would get what is known as 14kt gold, which is a very well used alloy in American and Eastern European jewels.
Other titles of gold are far less common: for example, you find 900/000 and 917/000 (respectively, 21kt and 22kt) mainly in gold coins, while 999/000 (24kt) is usually reserved for gold ingots. You could also find very old jewelry of cheap make, which could be made with a 333/000 (9kt) title.
In which place are you going to find these marks? It depends on the kind of jewelry you examine, of course — but generally, they are located next to the parts which open and close or set the jewelry. So, let’s check them one by one.
Necklaces:
In classic necklaces, the brand is usually located near the clasp. It can be found either on the tab that opens to let the ring of the necklace in or on the ring that joins the clasp to the necklace.
Bracelets:
In bracelets usually the brands are found at the same points of the necklaces, so, close to the clasp and on the different closures.
Rings:
In classic rings (wedding rings, solitaire rings, trilogy rings, etc.), that is, in rings with a normal stem, the mark identifying the gold and the manufacturer’s plate is located on the inside surface of the ring.
In rings that are difficult to “mark” because of their design, such as diamond rings, where there are no spaces large enough to put the marks, a small inner plate housing them is applied on the internal (and invisible) part of the top side, where the gemstone/decoration is.
Remember that it is quite common for rings to lose their marks over time, due to the slow wear of the ring by force of being put and taken off, and the effects of the polishings during the time.
Pins and Brooches:
On the pins, the marks are quite obviously behind the pin, in the part that remains out of sight. If you don’t find the marks on the back of the brooch, know that there is another, extremely hidden place where marks are often printed. So if you don’t find it in the back, try to look carefully along the pin of the pin or in the closure where the pin enters to stay fixed.
Earrings:
In earrings, marks are often found on the pin that enters the lobe. In earrings with a butterfly clasp (as in diamond light point earrings) the stamps are found on both each of the butterflies and on each of the pins that enter the lobe.
For earrings that have a clip (or nacelle) closure, you find it often on the edge of the clip.
5. Why it is better to resort to experts — and where to find them
As you can readily understand, it is very easy to fall prey to unscrupulous dealers if you are not an expert in the field, especially if you happen to resort to buying online.
So, the importance of resorting to a trustworthy organization, which takes care to ensure that what you are getting is the right thing — often makes the difference.
The best places to buy a second hand, vintage or antique jewel are trusted companies operating from a long time — something which you can easily check with a little search on the internet.
These organizations and portals have a reputation to defend, so they resort to experts of the field — jewelry, in this case — which makes sure that you get what you pay for.
So, our best advice is to look for straight online vendors which are backed by professional experts, like us at luxurybazaar.com.
We certify that what you are getting is exactly what we say — and so you would be covered by our expertise, as well as profiting from our amazing deals on second hand, vintage and antique jewelry.
However, if you feel adventurous, and like the thrill of the auctions, there are several trustworthy auction sites, both traditional and online. The most well-known is the very respected international auction houses, like Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Luxury Bazaar also has a monthly estate jewelry and vintage watch auction available at www.LBAuctions.com.
For online auctions, it depends where you are located physically, as importing precious objects might be difficult, involving paying import duties and/or confronting with bureaucracy: so to avoid these complications, if you are based in the USA, 1stdibs.com might be your best choice, while if you are instead Europe-centric, catawiki.com would be better.
Other online auction sites, like the most famous of them all, which is eBay, are not really secure, since there is no quality check on the objects which are put on auction. So, we advise you to proceed with extreme caution in this case, even if you pay with refundable systems like PayPal. It feels not worth of the hassle, to us, to risk your time and money just to get something which you could get in a much simpler way by referencing to a trustworthy and professional online retailer.
