Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

Hi, BMRT. You might increase success by making a separate thread for this. Not sure everyone who is knowledgeable about jewellery makers looks at this one devoted to cameos.

I can say the cameo itself is helmet shell & typical for mid-50s - early 60s, which may help in ruling specific manufacturers in or out of consideration. There's certainly enough written on it. I thought it might be shown upside down until I rotated 180 & found it looked even more upside down that way. What do you think you can read?

 

I’ll post it in the jewelry forum. I think I can read gold, ITA W51 and some of it I can’t make out at all. I think I’ll buy it blind, even if its a base metal setting I like it enough to take the risk. It isn’t expensive at all.

 

Terrible photos, discouraging price, amazing use of simple helmet shell:

https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/...aign=auction-alert&utm_content=lot-image-link

 

Plastic and random pot metal, any time from the 1970s on up. That design is called Ponytail Girl and she's been in use for the last 40+ years. The metal could have had something bad happen to it, or it could have been made to look old. Dunno.

 

The cameo, as evelyb30 has said, is a much reproduced design & does date back at least to the 70s, if not a bit earlier. (The hairstyle rule: a cameo cannot be any older than the hairstyle of the figure.) Unlike 'Headband Girl', Ponytail Girl does turn up in natural materials. Yours, however is definitely 'resin' & by itself of very little value.

The mount, on the other hand, is interesting. I agree it looks older & wonder whether the cameo is a replacement.

It is so black I would not be surprised if it is silver. I'm also curious about the one little stone at the top. The mount catches my eye because it reminds me of one in my collection.


The blackened silver sets off the diamonds nicely.

 

Looks like it needs a Lot of cleaning. Will be interesting to see when it's cleaned. The setting doesn't seem like a marcasite type of setting. I wonder if the stones are rhinestones, paste, or glass, that type of thing? I see a gleam on a couple of them.

Another possibility is that the bumps that look like stones are mostly all metal, except for the center top one.

Will enjoy seeing photos when you are finished! The photo of the back posted by the seller is a little blurry so it took me a while to realize that it is to be worn as a pendant, not a pin.

 

I do have a fairly large display cabinet crammed with all kind of things. It was mostly seashells & Zuni carvings, with a minority population of kaleidoscopes, until cameos got hold of me. Now they fill every other available space. As I've mentioned before, some larger ones are on little easels, most are lying flat. Either way, the 'footprint' of each is large, limiting how many I can show. If I were handy, think I would experiment with making a light frame holding a panel of nylon netting that could stand upright, perhaps tilted slightly backward, & pinning brooches to it. I have stickpins in the holes of a vintage salt shaker & use coral specimens to hold some things.

 

My original assumption was that there is only the one stone, & may turn out to be the case. Like you, really curious about what will be revealed once some of the incrustation is taken off. I don't think there are marcasites but...?

 

We'll know next week, I think!

 

Don't have anything coming my way at present so will be fun to have the anticipation over this one.

 

Hope some others will weigh in, because not my area of expertise. Anyway, I would start by simply giving it a good long soak in water with a little dish washing liquid & then have at it with a soft toothbrush to see what will come off easily, with special attention to the stone. Think my next move would be a test rub on the back with a tarnish removing cloth. If results were promising, I'd start bringing up details on the front. If it has been artificially patinated, don't know what to suggest.

 

I mentioned in another thread that I was recently looking through Collecting Costume Jewelry 303 by Julia C Carroll (seriously, it's a marvelous book).

What was different about looking through it recently was that I suddenly realized it is chock-full of Headband Girl and Ponytail Girl.

So I just went back through it. Earliest reference I found for Ponytail Girl was a 1968 Grieger Jewelry Arts catalogue. Don't know that it's her first appearance, just the first that's covered in this book.

For Headband Girl, 1972 is the earliest I found (also a Grieger ad).

Inquiring minds and all.

If I can find earlier references I will report back.

I know you (all of you) await with bated breath.

 

It's quite possible I'm the only person in the world who cares at all about this, but I do. Thanks for the research. And, yes, once you've become aware of them, H girl & P girl are just everywhere. Anytime I see one described as hand carved in whatever, I wonder where the seller has been all this time that they don't realize how common & mass produced they are.

 

Would love to see photos!