Bracelet - Vintage?

Recently bought this lovely little piece..

I'm still trying to learn jewelry and what's quality vs everyday. Prongs are a good indication, yes?

The piece weighs about 29 grams (1oz) and freely moves with no fear of breakage.
All the stones are tight and bright.

Any indication of age?
What style?

 

Very nice quality. Could be anytime from oh, the 70s on.

 

Looks to be Rhodium plated
I'd put it earlier than the 70s.
More like 1950s -60s.

Nice piece.

 

prongs are always good !!
& you've got a mess of em !!!

Nice BLING !!!!

 

Hi,
Have them checked. Remember the guy two years ago that paid 5 dollars for a fancy necklace for Halloween and gave it to his son for his costume and it turned out to be real diamonds and platinum. I think it had over twenty diamonds.
greg

 

Diamonds would be great --- I've never seen real stones in a setting like this (not sure what to call the strips of metal with the rhinestones attached).

The close ups look exactly like rhinestones to my eye. Truth be told (and thanks to the excellent close up photos) it even looks like the rhinestones have some issues with clarity.

If these were diamonds, the quality of the whole piece would be jumping off the page.

Nice piece, but to my eye positively costume and not diamonds.

That said, a good investment is a diamond tester, and everyone dealing with costume and fine jewelry should have one. (Around $10-15.)

 

The way it is made is like things I know to be from the 40s/50s, but I don't know how far into the future the same methods were used. By the time you get to the mid-60s, girls & women didn't have much occasion to wear such things, prom maybe. At one time high school & college girls had lots of opportunities to go to a dance in formal wear, put on by various organizations throughout the year.

 

It wants to be an old white rhinestone era bracelet, but I think it's a lot newer. It could have been made last year. What length is the bracelet? That's often the dead giveaway; the longer it is the newer it is. If it's under 7 inches it's an old one.

 

I wasn't either, but knew Swaroski & others sell whole spools of rhinestones. In that context, seems just to be called chain. Looks like 'catch free' cup chain is being promoted as the better alternative to snag-prone prong set.

 

Timely info for me. In connection with this post, just had another look at a couple of bracelets of this type that were among my mother's things. She would have bought them as collectible, even though unmarked, from some dealer whom she trusted. They are both made like this one & one fits my 6" wrist very well. The other is only a little longer.

 

I think it is just dirty and needs a cleaning.

 

The old ones from the "White rhinestone" era tend to be pretty short.

 

Length depends on the fashion of the time and the place of origin. Antique bracelets can be long if they were worn over long gloves. I have some 19th century ones that I can't wear because they are too big.

This bracelet looks like the pretty 1950s bling that was among my mother's jewellery. Nice quality, but certainly no diamonds.

 

I've certainly seen nice modern versions of these. I wear them with jeans and used to wear them with suits for work.

 

These pix do not capture the color well, just putting them up for comparison.

The top one is 6.25" & I see is marked Weiss. That & the unmarked one below it are the 2 my mother had in a little collection of vintage rhinestone jewellery.

The slender one with the square settings for the round stones is marked Sterling & is something my mother would have acquired & worn in the early 1940s. The one below was also hers, AB stones in a gold tone setting; think it dates to the same period, 1950s latest.

The necklace on the bottom is something I bought at a hospital charity shop in a very wealthy community. It is difficult to photograph. Choker length, made of hinged segments, each of which holds a pear shaped jet glass stone & a small white stone that is raised above it. The white stone overlaps the jet stone on the next segment.

None of the pieces has been polished. They have stayed bright over the years. I have occasionally worn the ones my mother had for formal dances with much less formal clothes. Feeling inspired to renew the practice.

 

Lovely Bronwen. I especially like the second bracelet.
It is almost impossible to capture the sparkle and colours on this kind of jewellery, I know. This is my mother's necklace, a little stunner which sparkles in all colours of the rainbow, but nothing on the photo:

 

why

It is very pretty. Suspect that is a large part of why my mother would have bought it, even though unmarked. Your mother's piece, with its fold over clasp looks like the same period. Only the Weiss bracelet has a push in clasp, making the bracelet look seamless when closed.

Big problem. Right now I have these & other pieces in a sparkly jumble in an Orrefors crystal bowl. I am going to want to sell them. Anyone have any tips for a far from expert photographer?

 

Take them on a plain dark background in good daylight, ideally. I use a cheap light tent but not an artificial light source, it flares the stones too much. Use a macro focus setting on whatever camera: mine is a Lumix. If you photo straight down or on, you also get flare. A slight offset is better.

 

Thank you. Pix I took were done pretty much that way, except light source was sunlight filtered through a window coated with city-grime. Maybe getting them into direct sunlight would make a difference. Knew the AB one would not show well next to the white stones.

A big part of my problem is that I just leave the camera on automatic & it makes 'corrections' of its own to color & brightness. I have photo editing software & can fiddle with them some, but getting the sparkle... May try seeing the outcome of pix under halogen light.

Thanks again.

 

You're welcome. I suspect if you edit them to sharpen and colour correct it will help.