If you’re looking to purchase vintage jewellery, it’s important to know the time periods to know the value of the pieces you may be contemplating. Since the term Vinatge can encompass a span of several hundred years, from splendid Georgian era of the 1700’s to the Hollywood glamour of the 40’s and even beyond to include pieces from the 1960’s, knowing what was crafted when and by whom is vital.

Here are the basics:

1. Georgian Vintage Jewellery is about the pieces crafted from 1714 to 1830 and may also be considered Georgian if it is made during the period from 1830 to 1837. All this jewelry is handmade. It is luxurious gemstone and gold and will be very expensive. This vintage jewellery style will encompass Rococo, Gothic, Neoclassical and lots of cameos, multi-strand gemstone necklaces, diamond and ruby and emerald rings and extravagant vintage brooches with marcasite and crystal, and in the latter period, the black iron and metal jewelry that was crafted to replicated original items donated to war causes.

2. Early Victorian Vintage Jewellery is considered Romantic when crafted during the period between 1837 and 1855 when Queen Victoria was happy and her family was united and Britain was prosperous. Exotic gemstone jewelry is dominant due to trade with India and the Orient bringing exotic gemstones and metals to Europe. Lockets are big, Scottish motifs, symbolic representations of insects and colorful message jewelry crafted from assorted stones to spell words or ideas to a loved one.

3. Mid Victorian Vintage Jewellery is from 1856 to 1880 and is considered Grand but austere and somewhat chunky, heavy and somber. Mourning jewelry was big after the death of Queen Victoria husband and mother. Simultaneously there appeared some exotic influences like the heavy and highly ornate Etruscan designs in gold.

4. Late Victorian Vintage Jewellery is found from 1885 to about 1900 and is considered an aesthetic style thanks to Danish princess Alexandra who married Edward VII and decided to lighten up heavy Late Victorian jewelry with soft gem tones and feminine designs; pearls and delicate motifs. Also Japanese patterns became a la mode, and archeological discoveries brought micromosaics into fashion as well as what is known as pietra dura, and the use of insects in crystal jewellery, butterfly pins and beetles and botanical motifs thanks to Darwin.

5. Arts and Crafts Vintage Jewellery is from 1894 to about 1923 and is considered a reactionary revolution or movement that returned jewelry to the hand craftsman and artisans instead of the setters of regal gemstones fro the courts. It was about nature and fine crafting of individual pieces and a reaction against the ornate and manufactured items of the Edwardian lavish court.

6. Art Nouveau Vintage Jewellery is from around 1895 to 1915 and overlaps the other periods, however is marked by being complex, for example Lalique and Gustave Klimt and Gaudi fall into this group of artistic complexity, although in terms of jewelry, the focus was design, raw gemstones, design, design, design….not the jeweler but the designer or artists was important.

7. Edwardian Vintage Jewellery again crosses over into a period of several contradictory trends that emerged during the years between 1901 and 1915. But Edwardian itself is considered ornate, heavy, elaborate, laden with gemstones like amethyst, emerald, ruby and a return to diamonds. Edwardian was crafted for the remaining European elite, not the masses who were seeking singular forms of artistic expression versus noble gems.

8. Art Deco Vintage Jewellery is from about 1915 to 1935 and is all about clean and crisp, geometric lines, color, art and simplicity of form. Symmetrical patterns, Asian and other Eastern motifs were popular, ziggurat shapes, Mayan angles and jagged lines, the influences of cubism, neoclassicism, and odd renditions of futurism.

9. The last era in this class is called Retro Vintage Jewellery and is so vast it can include 1940 through to the 1960’s and is best known for glamour and Hollywood glitz. Later it became chunky, synthetic and all things faux. Perhaps what is unusual about this epoch is the American influence and not the European courts or noble lords. It was jewelry from the lower classes that moved up and not from the upper classes that trickled down.