Featured Carboot Bits and Pieces

Hello all! I happened across our favorite kind of vendor at this weekend's carboot sale: had too much and didn't want to deal with it so she bagged it and said a euro a bag. Of course I had to have 4 and to be honest I'm not disappointed!

Its all costume except a 900 silver brooch and the black and gold plated necklace. I've done research on some of the pieces, but I have a few questions. I'll break them up into groups and post them separately so as to not overwhelm this thread. To think this is only half the stuff I got from the lady! This is only the old/marked collection I've sifted through to get to. She's English but I'm in France so will be all European and predominately English.

 

I see Spanish damascene, a possible Mary Englebreit hat, Czech black glass beads, a Russian/Baltic painted paper mache round pin, a winged heart that might be a good paste piece... The round earrings are 50s and 60s and were pretty well universal for a while. The Barry Island pin is a souvenir piece of some sort. Beyond that dunno.

 

The Toledo damascene fan brooch looks pre-1960.

Barry Island is a coastal resort in Wales, on the Bristol Channel. Not really an island, rather a peninsula. Maybe it was an island in the very distant past.

 

It's full of old steam engines, as an aside.

 

I did just post this pin in particular because its such fun. Is it much of a destination now? I think I read it kind of tapered off in the 80s.

 

Oh I do love new search terms thank you! Two questions now: The beads, how does one tell they're Czech? And the round pin, I see them everywhere in my region of france and yet no search says French? Are they always/mostly russian then? It does have a signature of 'br', but nothing has turned up, possibly an unknown or fake signature like in pictures?

 

You see enough of them. The round pins are famously Russian or Baltic; they were made in Ukraine and other places too. A lot aren't signed at all, and most of the signatures are anonymous. They are or were a cottage industry. There's no point in faking them.

Now you've got my attention.

 

Have a read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodham_Brothers

Thankfully, most have now been rescued.