Recognizing Vintage Jewelry

Recognizing vintage jewelry is very important and I believe it is one of those things that you acquire over time, however, you can definitely sharpen your skills with a few clues to look for as you are out looking for a new vintage jewelry find. 

One of the first things I learned when looking at a brooch was to turn the jewelry over and look at the back.  Older jewelry, particularly around the 1960s, had beautiful gold and silver plating on the back of their jewelry.  Of course, it was not on everything, but it was on a large number of pieces.  An example from one of my sets which I recently sold and was listed on Etsy and is shown below:

This set belonged to my mom and she purchased it in the 1960s.  The gold plating on the back of the piece is smooth and occasionally shows some puddling.  This set is not signed, however, it has the V shaped pin which is attached with a rivet with the rolling c clasp on the back and the smooth gold tone backing and I recognize from those clues that it is a vintage set from the 60s era. 

My mom and I began our jewelry store on Etsy with the idea of selling a lot of her vintage jewelry collection.  It has been such a joy to find items and resell them in our store that we have expanded from her personal items to those that we also find along the way.

Hope this tip helps you in some small way as you begin or continue your journey to identify vintage jewelry.