Identify Your Jewelry'S History

Each piece of jewelry has its own history.

Each piece of jewelry, whether costume or antique, has a history and can tell a story. Silver, one of the first metals used for jewelry, dates back to ancient Egypt and the Byzantine empires. Cameo brooches and earrings became popular during the years 1714 to 1830 and the 1970s saw a demand for affordable jewelry. Jewelers started using non-precious materials such as rock crystal, exotic woods, ivory and coral. There are some ways to help identify your jewelry and give a clue to its history.

Instructions

1. Hold a piece of your jewelry in one hand and a magnifier or loupe in your other hand.

Use a 10X triple loupe to carefully check the backs of bracelets and brooches, the inside band of rings, the holding lock clasps of your necklaces and bracelets for marks, signatures or initials of the manufacturing firm or jewelry artist.

2. Examine the kind of fastener used in each piece of your jewelry. Check to see if your brooches have C-shaped clasps that were popular in the 1800s, the era of steam power and the sending of the first telegraph by Samuel Morse, the inventor of Morse code.

Look at your earrings and see if there are riveted hinges that were developed around 1900, which would be close to the date of San Francisco's 1906 earthquake or the groundbreaking for the Panama Canal in 1904.

3. Take a sniff of your silver jewelry to see if it has a metallic, earthy smell, which might indicate that it is sterling silver and was manufactured during the 18th or 19th century. Examine jewelry made of bone, shell, ivory, enamel or carved glass that could have been created by Louis Comfort Tiffany, the American jeweler best known for his Art Nouveau designs during the years 1895 to 1905.

4. Search the Internet for a database of jeweler's identifying marks for various time periods. Compare these marks to the jewelry that belongs to you. Pay close attention to the style, design, markings or anything that might help identify your jewelry. Search archives of old fashion magazines with pictures of jewelry from different eras that might assist you with the history of your jewelry.

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