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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;mirana, post: 9577109, member: 79705&quot;]Very nice! It&#039;s always fun when the carver tries to use the top layer of the shell to give more depth of color.</p><p><br /></p><p>Cameos this old are technically not in gold plate, but gold fill. Fill is more gold than plate and can hold up very well for a long time. Usually you look for edges or into scratches to see if you can see the secondary metal underneath. Sometimes a loupe is necessary. May not be great to find it for resale value, but I think it&#039;s a testament to how good fill is that it can be hard to see unless you&#039;re looking up close in person. </p><p><br /></p><p>Gold alloy this old can also tarnish due to the other metals they are mixed with. It just takes a really long time! That&#039;s to our advantage because some might assume something is not solid gold due to darkened areas which are normal when it&#039;s 100+ yrs old. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/smilies/tongue.png" class="mceSmilie" alt=":p" unselectable="on" /> You can clean it up with dish soap, glass cleaner (ammonia) and a rub with a jeweler&#039;s gold polish cloth. Polish cloth will take a tiny amount of metal off but I&#039;ve found sometimes it&#039;s the thing for old tarnish.</p><p><br /></p><p>You may also see lead or silver solder (older jewelers seem to have been pretty liberal with it at times...) or green oxidization on non-gold bits. Sometimes a frame is gold but the fittings aren&#039;t. </p><p><br /></p><p>It&#039;s nice to have a beautiful frame, but if you love the carving then that&#039;s not a big deal imo. I&#039;ll buy un-mounted, missing needles/bails, or damaged frames if the art in it speaks to me![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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