Featured Books on antique and vintage jewelry to recommend

Hi,
I have searched and found some of the books mentioned above on US websites, not expensive, very reasonably priced, however when I choose to despatch to the UK , the shipment was £90 and the actual cost of the books was £30, something to be aware of. I ended up buying books on kindle format, not my preferred form, but useful.
Kind regards,
Simona

 

Shipping costs have increased a lot in the past few years! I know this is the case for US mailings, domestic and international.

 

I was interested in your suggestions and as I already have Costume Jewelry 101, I thought I would look up Costume Jewelry 202. Do you know the paperback is on Amazon for $398.00? Whaaaaaat's that all about??

 

OMG

 

With many 'niche' books you really have to shop around for the best deal, browse through many sites, and sometimes wait a few years.

 

A couple of questions, potentially going well beyond jewellery but hopefully not out of place here:

(1.) A few online merchants offer DVD compilations of scanned books, along the lines of "124 books on xyz" or "89 vintage books" on numerous subjects, including jewellery, gold and silver work, hallmarks. The prices are typically very reasonable (under ten pounds/dollars/euros including postage/shipping) and the books are old enough for this to be legal. At first glance it looks like a good and inexpensive way to acquire some useful works of reference. Can anyone comment on contents, quality and usability?

(2a). Can anyone recommend any multilingual dictionaries or terminology lists? Back in my translating days I used specialist English-German/German-English dictionaries for specialist fields (e.g. chemistry, finance, law). Are there any similar works people here refer to (for any language pairs)?

(2b). Can anyone point to resources for comparing terms used in different places to refer to styles and/or periods? I'm thinking both of overlapping terms (Jugendstil - Art Deco) and of terms specific to particular countries or empires (Georgian, Biedermeier).

Thanks in advance for any input!

 

I don't think there are any. That could be because many jewellery related terms are local or regional, there is no standardisation. The only standard I can think of is carat/karat/Karat/karaat, and I think we can work that out.

That would apply to styles in general, so also for architecture, furniture etc. There are books with timelines which include different countries, but never more than five or six countries.

Jugendstil/Art Nouveau, not Deco.

 

Thank you AJ, your answers are helping me to focus my thoughts!

That's certainly a valid point of view...

 

To partially answer my first question: In many cases, it's not hard to find the scanned out-of-copyright books by means of a simple internet search (specifying "filetype" as pdf).

 

I just bought a ton of books on ( at least identification) of jewelry through thrift books , if you don’t mind used they are very inexpensive and at least give you an idea of what your looking at , era etc & .Shipping is free …Then I refer to the web for prices . Hope this helps!

 

Most of my jewellery reference books are second hand. Some of my interests are pretty niche, so new books tend to be expensive. 'Vintage' (why not use that word ) books are more suited to my budget.

 

I don't think anyone has posted anything on Native American or Mexican. So here are some:

Lois Sherr Dubin - "North American Jewelry and Adornment, from Prehistory to the Present"
It is a huge and stunning book (with a matching price tag). It covers the different geographic and cultural regions of the US and Canada, with many beautiful photos and good in-depth explanations.

Barton Wright - "Hallmarks of the Southwest"
Not just jewellery maker's and shop marks, but also marks of makers of fetishes, heishi, pottery, rugs, and baskets.

Margaret Wright - "Hopi Silver. The history and hallmarks of Hopi silversmithing"
Arthur Woodward - "Navajo Silver. A brief history of Navajo silversmithing"
These are both older books, so no information on post-1975 jewellery, but of interest to those who like old pieces and an introduction into the history of silversmithing in the Southwest. Black and white photos, mostly text.


Mexican silver:

Bille Hougart - "The Little Book of Mexican Silver Trade and Hallmarks"

 

"Best Jewelry Books of 2021"

https://jewelryconnoisseur.net/best-jewelry-books-of-2021/

 

Yikes. Searched for some of these books and yep the paperbacks are still in the hundreds. One I found for 30 in tatty shape on amazon, and another I can get the ebook for 14, but I'm not sure how much I'll lose out on as my ereader is an older black and white one.

 

Which ones are you looking for, Rachel? Maybe I can find them for an acceptable price overhere.

 

Thanks for the offer! I was mainly looking for one of Jeanne Bell's books. Answers to questions about old jewellery, how to be a jewellery detective, or the antique jewelry field guide, those all looked rather good!

I searched most of the European Amazon websites, The UK has one paperback but the shipping is as much as the book itself. I'll try a few eBays and see where that gets me.

 

Don't buy them just yet, I'll message you about those. May take a while, I just helped someone get a visa, and my brain is on strike now.

 

Oh goodness so would mine! Anything governmental is such a mind boggler. Thanks for helping me!