Collection: Vintage Earrings

The term vintage earrings applies to a wide range of pieces typically more than 20 years old and back to the Georgian period in the early 1700s. The term vintage refers not only to the age of a jewel, but also to the specific era of design including the Victorian, Edwardian, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Retro, and mid-century periods of the 1950s and 60s. Beladora features hundreds of pieces from all these eras and the finest makers, including Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Bulgari, Tiffany and more. 

Under the category of vintage are found antique earrings which are generally identified as 100 years of age or more. Vintage and antique earrings feature designs, quality material and attention to detail often missing in mass-manufactured items of today. Rarity, painstaking workmanship and intricate design work are the hallmarks of vintage earrings representing the originality and quality of a bygone age.

Authenticating pieces of jewelry requires more nuanced expertise. Many thousands of pieces of jewelry have passed through our hands for over 40 years from every era and every maker. This familiarity enables us to know what a piece should look and feel like and if it has the expected quality of material and workmanship, the accurate makers marks and the correct signature in all the right places. Indeed, one of the easiest ways non-experts can be fooled is to assume a designer piece of jewelry is truly by that maker as pieces by commercial manufacturers are often outright fakes or signed fraudulently by a third party. 

In practice, we first look at the front and back of a bracelet, ring or brooch, turning it over in our hands to see​ that the workmanship on ​the reverse is just ​as ​fine as the detail on the front. Using the jeweler’s important tool, the loupe, we look carefully at many different touchpoints including the precision with which the ​diamonds are mounted in their settings, the manner in which gold or platinum links are connected to each other, the quality of the azuring, a most difficult and refined aspect of metalwork, the fineness of the material and we look for ​flawless ​polish.

If we have any doubts whatsoever as to authenticity, we submit the piece to the firm itself, be it Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Verdura, David Webb and others. We also request the original bill of sale, box and papers for those items most commonly faked such as Cartier Love brackets and VCA Alhambra pieces. And just as banks know their customers, we, too, ensure we know enough about our clients to assure ourselves of their ownership and provenance. 

Our team of GIA-certified jewelry experts has such a well-regarded reputation in the international jewelry industry that we are frequently called upon to advise auction houses, appraisers and other dealers in matters of authenticity and value.