Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

I have one with very similar construction. Just pulled it out to compare. Mine has more wear to the silver finish, so that the decorative balls are also now the gold tone of the underlying brass. If the back of yours is like mine, the MOP cameo is covered over by the metal. The hinge & clasp on mine are 20th century & do not appear to have been replaced. It would be of interest to see the back of yours. Older style findings do not always guarantee an older piece. Mine is vintage, but not antique.

 

Here is the back of mine.

 

It actually looks as though both hinge & clasp on yours have been replaced, or at least resoldered, & the pin deliberately bent so that the tip would not stick out so far past the edge of the setting. Will try to get photos of mine when light allows. Definitely same manufacture. Mine is Cupid in his boat, using the same type of MOP.

 

I was wondering about that pin. Interesting. Do you think the cameo itself is worn down, or was it made that way?

 

I think it was made that way. This is mine:

 

I like yours! I wonder if mine originally had the same type of clasp and hinge. But that seems weird to replace them with an older style clasp...

 

It looks a bit as though they were salvaged; the pin stem was definitely altered to suit better.

 

wondering if this is real and something special ?
https://www.ebay.de/itm/Belle-boucl...e-cisele-un-camee-coquille-serti/192908160333

 

It's genuinely old, but but beyond that ... dunno.

 

Appears to be a real brass sash buckle with a real shell cameo. Depends on whether you collect cameos or sash buckles; more interesting for the latter, I suspect.

 

thank you. was just wondering because I saw - or rather perceived - that such a thing exists. haphazardly when searching for art nouveau buckles.

 

(Forgive me if these cameos have already been posted, this thread is getting too long to check!)

Politically incorrect cameos:




This one's actually quite pretty:




Hmmm, those Masons...

 

Women's lib, the first wave. Just in case we couldn't figure out from the hair & clothes that this was a modern miss.

The subcategories under Flapper Cameos seem to be smokers, sports players & young women waving at their daring young men in their flying machines. The one with both a cigarette & a racquet looks like quite a tough cookie. The bracelets look more like handcuffs! The opportunity to stick in some diamonds seems to have overruled any aesthetic sense.

She is much nicer than the usual example. Shows how widely the same subject can vary in quality of execution.

Asia has taken to shell cameos in its own way. Wonder who it is exactly who buys such things.

It is rather like the old game of Concentration. I need to be consistent on an earlier resolve to add some key words to posts so easier to search. In this case:
flapper smoking cigarette racquet racket skull

 

Those ARE HYSTERICAL......OTOH, I LOVE the tendrils of 'smoke'!!!

 

I did try searching the thread for "smoking" and "cigarette" but didn't come up with anything. I didn't think of trying "flapper", LOL.
Cameo #1 has a very scary-looking hand holding that cigarette!

I enjoy this thread very much, thanks for starting it and thanks for being so generous with your time and expertise!

 

Couldn't have said it better, so I copied yours. Thank you, @Bronwen !

 

@bluumz @Figtree3 Thank you so much for the kind words & thanks to all who take an interest & keep this thread lively. I don't think My Lady Nicotine had made an appearance here before, hence the lack of search results.

 

One of my biggest regrets in not purchasing a large flapper cameo ring at a flea market. I didn't know the guy had layaway.... I still pine after 20 years.

 

Ah, yes. The ones that get away. Still, I have my little triumphs too, some acquired in full knowledge of what seller was virtually giving away, some bought more on a hunch. The ring with my avatar was the former. The cameo of Alexey Olenin that we worked up here was one of the latter. So was an Egyptian silver ring from the 1930s; the glass intaglio is the better part of 2,000 years old.


(It's the drunken Silenus seated backwards on his donkey, being held from falling off by a young satyr.)

Know from the Finds thread that all the dedicated members have their own tales of sharp eyes & superior knowledge enabling them to pick out treasure from dross.

 

One guess - the seller had no clue. All they saw was the setting?