Featured Star brooches and pendants, how to identify their age?

Hello beautiful people,
I have these 2 star brooches and pendant and was wondering how can one identify the age by looking at their settings? Pointing out the differences would be of great help.
The brooches are silver with paste stones, the pendant is 9ct yellow gold with pearls. The pendant was sold as Victorian, but have seen similar Edwardian ones.
The brooches have been sold as Art Deco.
Thank you.
Kind regards,
Simona
@Bronwen @kyratango @PepperAnna @Ownedbybear @Any Jewelry

 

The pendant makes a great snowflake. I'm going to leave dating to others, except to say I think the smaller star is the oldest.

 

Those are lovely! The gold one would like to come and live with me!

 

The ones on the ends have tube hinges, so generally that meane they're Victorian. The baby on the far right has the longest pin stem relative to the pin, so I'd agree it's the oldest. The center one is more like Bell Epoque. 1910ish.

 

Tube hinges can be anything from at least 1838 on. Stars are generally high Victorian, so mid 19th to late 19th. Probably silver. Are the stones clear under a loupe or are there black dots? Whoever said they were Art Deco is clueless.

Tend to agree the pendant is Edwardian.

 

Thank you so much for sharing @Ownedbybear, I have learned so much from this post.
I had a look at the stones, the stones do not seem to have black dots, there are some black patches which seem to be a reflection from the back of the stone. What I have realised is that the stones have different shades, some shades of yellow, can it be because of the glue or the metal ? Or are they real stones? On the bigger brooch there is some breakage on the middle stone and there I can see some black dots, but I just presumed that is dirt gathering in the broken orifice.
@Ownedbybear please, could you give us the inside of both scenarios: if the stones had dots and if they did not have dots.
Still a novice! Lol
But learning.
Xx

 

If you could see a black dot, at the centre of the base of the cut stone, that means it's black dot paste, which is usually earlier. It enhances the look of the stone.

Good explanation here: https://www.georgianjewelry.com/reference/helpful_terms

On the different colours, sometimes it's simply that the glass changes colour. Or, has lost foil. You do get real stones in silver brooches, so it's worth putting a tester on them. Sometimes, the centre big stone is paste, the others real.

On your pendant, by the way, that combination of yellow gold and pearls is very Edwardian. Artificial light was a thing, so the older styles, designed to show in candlelight, gave way to ones which could be seen in gas or electric light.

 

It's also one reason diamond cuts changed; lighting changed, so the way the stones were shaped to provide maximum sparkle did too.

 

Beautiful, Simona.

I've seen them on late 18th century brooches. They could be older still.

 

I'll believe that. The earliest dated one I've seen was 1838, an inscribed piece. But they're certainly on Georgian things.

 

What predates tube hinges @Ownedbybear ?

 

Sort of bendy things. Let me see if I can find some images...

 

I would be very Intrested to see as well… I can only imagine something similar to safety pins…

 

It was different. The bendy things obb mentioned were more like bent regular pins, secured at the end where the pin end is with a loop or tube, and then bent at a 90 degree angle with a little bend in it near the hinge. You occasionally see them on later brooches.
There were also hinges that looked a bit like early 20th century ones.

Unfortunately photos of early brooches rarely show the backs, so they are difficult to find. And of course many closures were replaced.

 

AJ has descirbed the bendy things far better than me.

 

Those bendy ones are still used sometimes. They're something a jewelery-maker can knock out on his/her own, and if you don't have access to factory findings (or they're too expensive) you can still make the older style ones.

 

I think the stars brooches on the left and right are modern copies/reproductions after older originals.
The stars-brooches became very fashionable after the Austrian empress Elisabeth wore them. She recieved the first stars aroung 1855 and later had a set of 27 slightly different stars in total. They were 8 or 10 pointed with diamonds or diamonds and pearls and originally made by Rozet & Fischmeister and later by Köchert. 8 of 27 stars are still known, the others have been lost.

 

Those are old backs.

 

I beg to differ, both brooches have been cast with a technique developed in the 1950s. In the 1970s and 1980s many reproductions of older pieces were made in Argentina, Israel and Portugal for the American and European market. They look very similar, often also have old style hinges/fittings.

 

No, the backs are old. These aren't copies. I own and have handled many. The paste is also old.

In the UK the fashion for star brooches well predates the mid 19th C.