Featured 2ND STORAGE UNIT AUCTION FIND! ANTIQUE? VINTAGE? TIFFANY PEARL TOP 14kt HAIR PIN?

Hatpin. Those creations the ladies wore over their hair were complicated and had to be attached securely. And attractively.

 

Seven inches is too short for the type of hatpin needed to anchor those great big creations of the early part of the last century, while the ones I remember as used for the more modest chapeaux of the 40s/50s were much smaller. This is part of why I revised my original opinion to hair ornament.

 

Hi,
Some where I remember that the huge large hat pins were made illegal since they could be used as a lethal weapon and they were reduced to 7" in length. I do not know how true it is. I have several that are 13" and 15" inches in length.
greg

 

Suffragettes were forbidden to wear pins over a certain length to rallies, something that way. It wasn't a universal limitation.

 

It occurs to me that another reason to think this would be for hair rather than hats is the gold shaft. The head on a hatpin might be gold, but something reliably sturdy & bend-resistant was needed for hats. Can't really tell for sure, but my impression is that the point on the Tiffany pin is not as sharp as that on a typical hatpin.

 

It's a hatpin. The length could range widely, sometimes well over 12", but around 6" was a very common late 19th-early 20th century length. The early 20th century legislation on maximum length was all locally passed and varied, but usually around 7"-8", it was prevalent enough for a time that some catalogs and ads would describe their hatpins as 'regulation' length.

~Cheryl

 

Love this: Interviewing Gypsy Graves is like tap-dancing in a rake factory.

 

Thanks @Any Jewelry for tagging me!
Journey, this is a beauty and a very desirable piece, because of Tiffany, and the original case
Not a hair ornament, @Bronwen, it would slip out of the bun in one blink, should need to have 2 prongs, or a larger flat shaft...

Material is satin finish onyx, crystal roundel and pearl.
The longest hatpins date around 1910, when fashion was to wear huge wide hats, covered with feathers, even whole big birds
Laws were promulgated to limit the length of the weapon ( pre-Weinstein era but there was some insisting suitors...) and made mandatory to wear an end protector on the needle!
I situe this one just before 1920, and probably to fit a mourning attire.

 

My mother wore her hair up during the later 60s & bought 2 pairs of pins for dressier times, costume quality, not fine jewellery. The single, pointed, straight pin parts were maybe about 7 inches long & round in cross section. One pair had gold filigree balls for heads; the other 2 were sort of a big (faux) pearl held in a petal-like setting.

I would think the risk of loss would be greater with a hat.

 

I think your mother got hatpins (yes, they normally went by pair, perhaps new old stock) and thought they were actual hair sticks ornaments. While hunting for them on internet, I often see them described as hairpins
I don't know if they fell easily from hats, but that may be the reason you now find them usually as single

 

That's a big amount.

 

I still use a hatpin when I wear a hat, and use it to keep my hat from being blown off my head. (Netherlands-flat country-windy country ) I have never lost a hat or a hatpin.
I think single pins could result from either single wear, like I do, or from families splitting up their inheritance. The 'I want it too' issue, or equal ditribution of valuable items.

Most Dutch gold 'oorijzers' suffered a similar fate, the filigree end decorations were turned into brooches for two daughters (in-law), the gold oorijzer proper was left for melt value:


Sad:


These examples are from Friesland, in the north.
The way it was meant to be worn, to secure the lace cap in a windy country: