Featured Help w/ Pendant/brooch

Hello once again,

I’ve picked up a small brooch/pendant and was curious if anyone recognized this to any particular design or a style? It’s about 2.5 cm, center cabochon looks like plastic but clicks against teeth and is cold. Doesn’t look like turquoise but no stone is coming to mind. Definitely not enamel. Perhaps glass? Back is a c-clasp. No marks except the “Sterling” on the bail.

I was impressed and motivated to collect this one as the little decoration on the edges could all be accounted for. Anyone able to see anything from their experience?

 

the pin puts it in antique territory ....
looks all hand made, but not high quality finishing....so..ya...maybe glass..

 

Agreed. Perhaps a hobbiest piece but it was worth asking if anyone thought it fit a style.

I’m still super green on recognizing things.

 

Is there a mark at the end of the enhancer next to the sterling mark? The construction looks like north African with the double serrated wire in the filigree.

 

Not hobbyist.

Is it glass, @Hollyblue? And you're asking about the area I circled, right? How old?

 

Photos too blurry to even guess what the "stones" are besides being blue with black lines. Yes,it looks like a mark or something in the circled area. Age,anything would be a guess."C" clasp is not a positive age indicator much like trombone clasp are still being used in some countries. The pin stem and hinge could be recycled.

 

The front looks 1960s, the back looks Victorian. I vote marriage.

 

Not hobbyist. Not North African either, North African countries have proper assay systems which means they have their own specific assay marks, never an English word like sterling.
That kind of double serrated wire filigree is found in many countries.
With the combination of that filigree, the sterling mark, the shape, and those blue glass cabochons, my guess is somewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean. Possibly 1930s-50s Palestine/Israel.

 

well there ya go.....for a brief moment I thought I knew something of value....but I guess not !

 

Why not?

I think you were right there.

 

i was thinking the pin type was a possible age indicator ....

 

It can on Western European brooches, and I am sure North American as well. In the rest of the world it depends on the specific location, including the difference between urban and rural.
The coastal cities of Tunisia and Algeria for instance, largely followed W. European fashions. People outside that region don't realize it, but those were very cosmopolitan places.

 

Are you sure that's a bail? Looks more like a watch hook to me...

~Cheryl

 

What's a hobbyist, anyway?

Marrying jewelry elements has been a big cottage industry for a while now (co-opted by Steam Punk).

But I always thought marriages on older jewelry were made out of necessity to repair sentimental jewelry, mostly.

Not a hobby where people had access to oodles of jewelry elements and findings...?

 

I vote 1960-70s, possibly India import. Could be died stone or glass. Probably sold someplace like Cost Plus, or places that sold batik dresses, hippie stuff.
The back isn't finished nice enough to be late 1800s.

 

There isn’t anything else marked there. It just looks weird like it’s scratched from what I see. Sorry it took a bit to respond, life got in the way.

 

Fair. I assumed it was a bail. It is opened and not closed.

 

It's not a bail because it is at the bottom. How can something round have a top & bottom? Because the vast majority of brooches are made for the convenience of a right handed person pinning it on herself, which you would naturally do holding it with the hinge on the right.

My 2 cents are: commercially made, not a later marriage cobbled together; not very high quality, so cabochons likely to be glass; Edwardian maybe, not super old, but can't see anyone bothering using up additional sterling to add a watch hook no one would have used in the 60s.