Vintage costume jewelry has become a highly collectible niche in the antiques and collectables world. Here are a lot of of the most collectible names in vintage costume jewelry and galore background on them.
Weiss
Created in 1942 by a former Coro company employee named Albert Weiss, Weiss has become one of the most general and collectible names in vintage costume jewelry collecting. Weiss is synonymous with beauteous and refined and tasteful rhinestone pieces including brooches, necklaces, bracelets and earrings. Sadly, the Weiss company went out of business in 1971, consequently their pieces are very collectible and the most pretty pieces including figurals like birds and animals routinely trade for high prices on auction web sites and in both online and offline stores. Watch out for reproductions of Weiss jewelry, numerous less welleducated marketers on eBay will trade a reproduction as a true Weiss. Real Weiss jewelry is of special quality, you may often tell a phony from a real piece by watching the details of the piece with a loupe. Also, a good deal of Weiss fakes have a textured backing, where real Weiss is very smooth. The stamp may likewise be offset or a bit difficult to read. Real Weiss in general has a strong stamp with clear lettering.
Eisenberg
The Eisenberg company started out in 1914 as an apparel company. Then sometime in the 1930′s, they formulated and begun to market jewelry pieces. Like Weiss, Eisenberg is known for high quality craftsmanship and for using high quality materials, including sparkling Austrian crystals. Their earliest pieces were marked as “Eisenberg Original” and later on they marked their pieces plainly “Eisenberg” or “Eisenberg Ice”. The Eisenberg company still makes jewelry today but plainly the older pieces are the most collectible. For a time in the 1940′s, Eisenberg applied sterling silver in their pieces and any pieces in sterling silver are very collectible. Their pieces in sterling silver will be marked as such.
Hobe
Pronounced ho-bee, Hobe has been a name synonymous with fine quality costume jewelry since the 1920′s. The Hobe family in truth started making jewelry in France in the late 19th century, then William Hobe founded the official company when he came to the US from France in the late 1920′s. Hobe jewelry is characterized by it’s magnificent quality of craftsmanship, usage of gold and silver plated settings and quality stones. During Hollywood’s golden age, Hobe jewelry was a favored of Hollywood stars and their finest pieces could be seen adorning starlets wardrobe’s in numerous classic movies. Hobe pieces were all marked, with the name Hobe specifically stamped in a stylized Art Deco style script with an elongated H or B or in block letters. The original, family run Hobe company stopped fabricating jewelry in the early 1990′s, nevertheless a Hobe company exists that still gives rise to jewelry marked as Hobe up to today.
Coro
The name Coro in truth comes from an abbreviation of the basi founders last names, which were Cohn and Rosenberger. The company was founded in New York around the turn of the century and later integrated with the name Coro. The Coro company was one of the most, if not the most, prolific producer of costume jewelry in the 20th century. At one point for the duration of the 1920′s, the company was said to have applied more than 2000 workers in manufacturing their lines of costume jewelry. The Coro company prided itself on constructing costume jewelry for a wide range of customers, and as a result you could find Coro pieces available in both a local five and dime store and likewise find finer Coro pieces in high end division stores. Coro’s finest pieces could surely compare in craftsmanship, design and quality to well known, highly collectible names like Weiss and Eisenberg. Due to their massive production, Coro used well over 100 styles of marks, stamps and variations of marks on their jewelry, at times altering their marks each year. Coro likewise formulated jewelry under other brand names such as Vendome, which is highly collectible, CoroCraft, Cellini, Francois amid numerous others. Highly collectible Coro pieces include their widely known and esteemed “jelly belly” pieces, sterling silver pieces including those marked MEXICO and their “Coro Duette” line.
Other Collectible Names
While these names are a heap of of the most collectible names in costume jewelry, they surely aren’t the only collectible names. More collectible names include Art, Lisner, Napier, Trifari, Boucher, Miriam Haskell, Carnegie, Florenza, Kramer, Sarah Coventry, Schreiner, Van Dell, Whiting & Davis, Bogoff, as well as others.
