Featured Good Morning Everyone! Can You Please Help With The Age Of This Brooch/ Pendant? Thank You!

Hi Everyone! I hope you are all doing well!

I bought this pendant brooch and it has no markings. It was tested to be 14k gold and genuine diamonds. Some of the stones are missing, but I was planning of replacing them with rubies on the outside and keep the diamonds where they are. Anyways, I wanted to know how old you think this piece might be. It look pretty old to me, but don’t if it is early or late 18/19 century. As always in advance, thank you for all your responses and enjoy the rest of your day/ evening. I sincerely appreciate your help.

 

@ezeepass, I love that it can be worn either way & love your idea of the rubies around the outside!!! IF you have a Loupe, you might want to check where I've circled in RED....it might be nothing, but looks like faint writing.....to ME....! AND I'm NOT all that great on figuring ages!! Sorry!!

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It is stunning, ezee.
That round hinge was introduced in the 1890s, and I think this beauty was made a little later, around 1900.

It looks like there were once diamonds in the outside settings too, which is in keeping with the type of star jewellery they had in those days.

 

thank so you for responding. There is not a mark there, but to your right where you circled there is a 4 and above the pin to your left there is a 50 or 56 that are hand marked on the piece

 

Thank you AJ and it is! The hinge actually turns

 

I know it does, but I meant the hinge of the pin.

 

lol ok

 

Well made, turn of the century piece. The missing stones may have been removed during the Depression.

 

Thank you BronWen!!

 

I believe you are correct about the stones been removed. I noticed a few of the prongs looks like it was pull apart to remove the stones.

 

the diamonds that are left are so clearly beautiful. I have never seen a diamond so pretty. The sparkles are like Wow!

 

Ok I need you opinion on this. I wanted to use rubies around the top of the brooch, but finding out the prices are too high if I wanted them natural without fills. Any ideas of a gemstone that would compliment the piece? I need 8 2.5mm thank you

 

To me it's shouting "dark blue stones"! Like blue sapphires.

 

I was thinking undrilled pearls; a lot these were made with pearls originally anyway. Then there are aquamarines, amethysts, peridot, tsavorite garnet, chrome diopside (bright green), other garnets of all colors, etc. If you want red, there are plenty of garnets to fit the bill and they're not expensive.

If you hit a guy with a bunch of loose stones, you could always go multicolor or ombre.

 

I thought about sapphires also. thank you

 

Eve pearls were my first thought and yes they did use a lot of small pearls back then. Thank you

 

56.
This brand of sample is called spool, when the weight of the parts is determined not in grams (not in metric units), but in English pounds (approximately 300 grams). One gold standard unit is 1/96 lb. Thus, a fineness of 56 means that there are 56 parts of pure gold for 96 parts. This system was introduced by Peter the Great (he tried to bring Russia closer to European standards), and was replaced in 1927 by the international metric system of measures.

 

My first thought is pearls for sure...seems to be a natural fit !

 

It's not a quality piece,either it has had poor repairs or the fabrication was bad to start with.

 

Yes, they even look very clear on the photos, beautiful. Just imagine what it would have looked like with the outer ring of diamonds.

If it is indeed a Russian brooch, the diamonds could have been removed to fund an escape from Soviet Russia, and further migration. Refugees (of any period) often had jewellery sewn into the lining or hems of their clothing.