Collection: Vintage Pins and Brooches

Authenticating pieces of jewelry requires serious knowledge, experience and expertise. Truly thousands of pieces of jewelry from every era and every maker have passed through our hands in our over 40 years in the business and this familiarity enables us to know what a piece should look and feel like, to determine if it has the expected quality of material and workmanship, and if the makers marks and signatures are genuine and in all the right places. 

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 the ​flawlessness of the ​polish.

If we have any doubts whatsoever as to authenticity, we submit the piece to the relevant firm, be it Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Verdura, David Webb or others. We also require the seller to provide us with 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 our clients to assure ourselves of their ownership and provenance. 

In fact, 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.