My Favorite Jewelry Reference Book

No, it doesn't have a lot of pretty pictures. It has just enough. It's not big and heavy and it doesn't make me look like an intellectual. It just clearly and simply pictures and defines all those little parts and pieces (or findings and settings, for the purists) of jewelry. And it's small enough to fit in my purse.

This book is one that I normally wouldn't have purchased because I already have a large library of jewelry reference books. I've taken classes at NYU on costume jewelry, appraising jewelry and the identification and history of jewelry. But you know what? After all that I still find myself running back to my book for the correct term or the correct spelling. Why?

Well, there's a very simple reason why Leigh Leshner's Secrets to Collecting Costume Jewelry has become the most useful book in my library. It's simply the fact that the book so well laid out and so easy to use that it's always the first thing I reach for.

Leshner begins with a general discussion of collecting costume jewelry, including where to buy, tools, and some helpful hints and secrets. She manages to wrap up her expertise of years of collecting in less than 40 well written and easily read pages. If you know absolutely nothing about collecting costume jewelry you can't go wrong with her advice.

She spends the next portion of the book delineating the era's of costume jewelry beginning with Victorian times. Although she only illustrates these era's with one or two pieces of jewelry, she has somehow managed to select the most perfect and typical example of each.

From the discussion of eras she moves on to the discussion of manufacturing and techniques used to create different types of jewelry. She gives excellent examples of enameling techniques, shapes of rhinestones and types of findings that our commonly (and uncommonly!) used in costume jewelry. Each has item has one of two small pictures that make identification easy.

The final portion of the book include definitions "Specific types of Jewelry, Materials and Styles". There she defines and gives examples of such items as duettes, sautoirs and prison rings. It's most useful when you come across that oddball piece and you'd love to know what it is.

There's lots more in the book to enjoy, but as a basic reference book it can't be beat!

Gather Ye Rosebuds...

I was going through some of my collection and I was struck by the fact that some motifs in jewelry that have been around forever. Flowers, for example have been used for beautification ever since the first cave woman stuck a flower in her hair for cave men to admire and other cave women to envy.

Of course there are a lot of different species of flowers and jewelry reflects nature's diversity. For example, you will find daisies, black-eyed susans, chrysanthemums, dahlias in both fine and costume jewelry. However, one of the most enduring and favorite flowers used by jewelry designers are the rose and rosebud.



Here's a perfect example of a great use of material by a designer to depict a very realistic rosebud. The designer has used both gold and silver tone metals to bring out the details. Through the intelligent use of materials, this piece conveys a very natural feeling. Alas, this piece is unsigned, so we will never know who made such a wonderful creation.


A completely different approach was used on the little carved white brooch below. The rose is much more stylized because of the nature of the material used for the rose. The leaves are much more realistic. Both the rose and petals are contained in a twisted circle of gold. This is a classic piece of costume jewelry from the 1950's - 1960's that would look just as good on today's fashions as it did then.


Of course, rosebuds weren't just used for brooches. Roses for the ear proliferate just as much as roses for the bosom. There are many examples of roses and rosebuds for the ears. Small rose earrings were particularly popular in the 1950's and remain popular today. I'll leave you with this interesting pair of Coro earrings that are embellished with rhinestones. These particular earrings are a bit unusual because the earrings have a full stem and two large leaves. It's much more common to see just a single rose with perhaps one or two tiny leaves peeking through from the back.

Perhaps there is a matching brooch out there somewhere for these earrings?

The Stories They Can Tell Us

I recently uncovered this ring in my collection of jewelry. I'm not much of a ring person, so this interesting piece was languishing in a drawer. I have no idea where I actually got it from or how long I've had it.

Being a romantic, I just knew that there had to be a story behind this ring. Of course, my notions were heavily fueled by just having recently seen the latest Indiana Jones movie.

Perhaps the ring was purchased in from a market stall outside the walls of Teotihuacan. Maybe the purchaser had just climbed the pyramid at Chichen Itza. Was the ring made by some Mexican peasant who spent his days making items for the tourist industry? Or was it made by a factory in Mexico City? The ring appears to be hand made, but who knows what it's true origin.

Was it purchased by the beautiful, young second wife of a middle age tourist on their honeymoon? Was it worn by a member of the French resistance in WWII? The ring appears old enough. Was it a gift to an archeology student who did one semester of excavation in Mexico? Or perhaps it was worn by an illegal immigrant who wore it to remind himself of home.

I know there's a story and a past behind this ring. I can see it when I pick it up. I can feel it when I hold the ring. I only wish this ring could talk and tell me the story of the person who wore it. I'm sure it's full of love and adventure.

- Dawnjewels

I am so excited! I just got my copy of a new book on Juliana (aka DeLizza and Elster) jewelry. The book, The Art of Juliana Jewelry, was written by Katerina Musetti, and was published by Schiffer Books.

If you don't already know, DeLizza and Elster jewelry is among the most sought after costume jewelry around. Their use of unfoiled stones, art glass and other specialty rhinestones in fantastic multi-layered designs has always made this jewelry a standout. This beautiful jewelry is also extraordinarily well made, so it has held up well over the years.

Since DeLizza and Elster jewelry was never signed, it's always been difficult for the average collector to identify. Fortunately, Musetti's book contains a very detailed section on how to identify Juliana jewelry. She also uses lots of photos so that you can clearly understand exactly what she is describing to help with identification.

The book contains over 450 photographs of DeLizza and Elster Juliana jewelry. My only criticism of the book is that some of the photos are a bit repetitious. On the other hand, I was also very pleased that Musetti included pieces that were attributed to and signed by other makers, such as Weiss, that were made by DeLizza and Elster.

I have a few pieces of jewelry in my collection that I had long suspected were Juliana, and I was delighted that my suspicions could be confirmed with photographic evidence from this book.

This is an absolute must have book for both the fledgling as well as experienced collector of costume jewelry.

Lost Jewelry Arts

Just got back from Denver where I attended the national MENSA convention. No, I don't belong to MENSA, my husband does. As Groucho Marx once so wisely said, I don't want to belong to any institution that will have me!

Anyway, for several days of the event, there were various Mensan's who were selling their handcrafted items. Although many of the items were quite lovely, I was really surprised to see two vendors who were using techniques that I thought had been lost. These were sea shell jewelry and crocheted rope jewelry.

The sea shell jewelry was not the tourist stuff you generally see when you travel. Rather tiny cap, or cup, sea shells are dyed and made into delicate flowers or figures. These tiny shells, about 1/4" in diameter each, are very thin and delicate. In the 50's, sea shell jewelry like this was made by forming elaborate floral designs and gluing the shells onto plastic discs or into gold frames. This vendor had come up with an interesting twist on that technique by using plain vintage brooches as a base for her designs. Because the underlying brooches were often abstract in design, the result was attractive jewelry that was an interesting combination of old and new.

The second vendor was crocheting beads into ropes for necklaces and bracelets in beautiful jewel-like colors. Crocheted bead ropes are made by stringing tiny beads onto thread and then crocheting it into ropes about the same diameter is clothesline. She was using colored and clear beads over various colors of threads to form these bead ropes.

Crocheted bead rope jewelry has gone in and out of popularity many times. In the Victorian era tiny jet beads would be crocheted into mourning jewelry. In the 20's flapper wore sautoirs, very long necklaces with tassels on the end. These were often made of crocheted of glass beads. Although this particular style of necklace is out of fashion, crocheted bead ropes still make lovely necklaces and bracelets. In fact, I purchased a bracelet that was made of clear plastic beads that had been crochet on verigated cotton thread. The result was a really pretty bangle bracelet in soft shades of moss green.

Sometimes it seems that old techniques of making things are lost. But somewhere, there is always someone who continues to adapt old techniques to new fashionable styles.

Retro Jewelry and Plastic Jewelry

Since I talked about the types of jewelry I like to collect, I thought I would share some pictures of my favorite pieces.

Plastics have been used to make jewelry since around the turn of the century. Bakelite is probably the most well-known for use in jewelry, but other commonly used plastics include celluloid, lucite and thermoset. This pretty red necklace is actually a combination of plastics. The red links are made of celluloid and the interesting heart is a clear lucite over red lucite. The heart pendant is nearly three inches wide.

Celluloid could be used to make very elaborate jewelry. It was easily carved and molded into shape, like the links above. This bracelet is a perfect example of one of the more elaborate designs. Although this piece is pure white and looks like chalk, many of these bracelets were highly colored.

Because celluloid, as well as many other plastics, were cheap and so easily formed, they were often used for a lot of novelty jewelry. Remember Cracker Jacks? Cracker Jack "prizes" were often made of celluloid.

Celluloid is also highly flamable, so you want to keep it away from flame. I can't help but wonder how many pieces were lost back in the days when everyone smoked.

Retro is a term that is used often to refer to something that is a throw back to another era. However, there was a specific style of jewelry popular in the 1940's that is called Retro. Think back to some of the classic black and white movies of the time. Remember the women's fashions? Plain suits with straight skirts and jackets with wide lapels and broad, heavily padded shoulders. Retro jewelry, with its simple, bold lines was a perfect accompaniment for those styles. The pale blue stones on this piece make it a particularly attractive example.

Here's a smiliar piece with purple or violet rhinestones. This piece is signed Corocraft by Coro. Coro was one of the most prolific costume jewelry companies through the 30's and 40's. They created a great deal of Retro jewelry which is collectible today. Typical of Coro jewelry at the time, this piece is a gold wash over sterling silver.

Of course, these are just a few favorites. I have so many more, I couldn't possible post them all.

When does collecting become an obsession? Is there a cut off point?

I've been collecting costume jewelry for many, many years. I currently have over 10,000 pieces. Fortunately, it takes up little storage space. Nobody really knows how much jewelry I really have because it takes up less than 12 square feet of space.

Does having that much jewelry make it an obsession? I decided that perhaps I have gone a bit over the top, so I'm currently winnowing out my collection by selling pieces on the internet. Now, I'm going to stick to two main focus areas for the jewelry I plan to keep. Retro, especially the Coro retro, and plastics. In a sense, they are two opposites. The retro has long, cleans lines and simple designs and perhaps a single rhinestone for color. The plastics, especially the celluloid, can have very complex floral designs and lots of color.

Will this bring down the size of my collection? Probably not. In order to obtain the pieces I want, I often have to purchase whole lots of jewelry at auctions and estate sales. Is it worth it? Absolutely! The treasure hunt is part of the obsession too.

Who Am I?

Well, I guess I could get very existential on the topic, or even wax poetic, but I'll just stick to a few basics.

I've been interested in costume jewelry since I was little girl. My mother worked for a large jewelry company as an enameler. When they would do their inventory, they would dispose of flawed stones of all types. She would bring those stones home and put them in her jewelry box, where I would find them and play with them.

Of course, that box was full of all kinds of other jewelry too. I remember large Trifari brooches, sparkling Judy Lee sets, blue Pell rhinestone brooches and rings - lots of rings. Diamonds, emeralds, rubies, turquoise... I could go on. My Mom loved rings more than any other type of jewelry. I'm sure that many people have similar memories of the magical items in their Mom's jewelry box.

Ever since those days I've been fascinated with costume jewelry. I've been collecting for years and continue to refine my collection. I support my passion by buying and selling at antique malls, garage sales, flea markets and the internet.

I'd love to hear other stories of how people got interested in costume jewelry.