Beads by Mail Notes on Jewelry Fabrication

Mold Making is Key

One of the most important artistic assignments in jewelry fabrication is the creation of the mold Skillful mold makers could trounce the competition with their ability to create good jewelry molds. Each gold, silver, or base metal mounting from a good mold is detailed, individualized, and crisp, and reflects the designer's particular style.

Designers sometimes required their molds to be destroyed after a certain number of pieces were cast. This meant the piece was a limited edition, which increased its value.

The challenge of creating a mold can be seen in the Kenneth J. Lane butterfly brooch, with its extremely slender border that must be stabilized by larger elements inside the "wings" of the creature. The mountings for each glass "stone" had to be sized exactly so that the glass pieces, which were manufactured separately, would fit into their locations perfectly. If the settings were too large the glass would fall out. Too small and the stones would distort the settings, ruining the look of the piece.

While designers worked mainly in Manhattan, their jewelry was fabricated, for the most part, at locations in or near Providence, Rhode Island.

The Costume Jewelry Industry Began with an Early Form of Money Laundering

The beginnings of the fashion jewelry industry are somewhat unsavory. Slave-ship captains and slave traders converted silver and gold coins gotten from their dealings into teapots, tankards, and other objects that could be identified with hallmarks and were less likely to be stolen. Hence the term coin silver. (That costly coin silver item you won at auction may have been made from ill-gotten lucre.)

Rhode Island was a colonial center for this type of metalwork. Skilled metalsmiths had plenty of work and so could experiment with various ways for binding precious metals in extremely thin layers to base metal foundations. These innovative technologies established "Little Rhody" (RI) as a leader in jewelry manufacture. (The most famous colonial metalsmith, Paul Revere, worked in Boston's North End.) When we consider the primitive tools these artisans had, we find it amazing that they created such advanced methods.

The First Appearance of Costume Jewelry

Around 1800 a jeweler named Nehemiah Dodge started selling cheap jewelry made by plating a thin layer of gold onto base metal. The jewelry was a hit with customers, although ridiculed as junk by Dodge's jewelry peers. Dodge is credited with being the father of fashion jewelry. We're not sure but we think the term "dodge" meaning a scam or swindle may have entered the language at this time. (That's a dodge or that's "dodgy": meaning it is an imitation masquerading as the real thing.)

Gold-filled metal was invented later. This involved heating copper coated with a gold-bearing "soup" in a furnace until the gold "sweated" to the surface, then rolling to obtain a sheet of copper with a very thin coating of gold. Copper-based silver is a very popular jewelry metal in the Orient. Most of the silver cloisonné and enamel beads on our Metal Page are beautiful examples of the use of silver on copper.

Electroplating was invented in the 1850s. This enabled factories to plate base metal more skilfully and quickly, and get a thicker-appearing surface.

Collecting Fashion and Vintage Jewelry

Signed pieces are extremely collectible. If you have some older pieces, look on the back for any identifying marks. A registration number means the piece was a limited edition and that the mold was most likely broken after a specific number of pieces were cast.

Mountings with 2 or 3 "levels" are far more complex to make and set stones into. Jewelry with more than one level has more depth and interest. The Weiss company mastered this type of jewelry design, and were also masters in the art of surrounding larger round or tapered prong-set crystals with a border of smaller prong-set crystals.

Environmental concerns and the balance of trade have affected the jewelry industry. The effluents from plating are noxious and platers (the few that are still in business) are now closely regulated. Cheap imports from the Orient, India, Mexico, and Bali as well as other third world countries have invaded and eroded the US fashion jewelry market. During the heyday of the costume jewelry industry there were 75,000 people employed making jewelry in Providence, RI, Attleboro, MA, and surrounding towns. Your class ring was probably made in Attloeboro.

Another category of collectible costume jewelry is the knock-offs of pieces worn by Jackie O, the Duchess of Windsor, Princess Diana, Elizabeth Taylor and other high profile women, as well as period jewelry worn in movies and on television.

Occasionally jewelry from an old film becomes available. Hollywood jewelry designers like Joseph of Hollywood and Edith Head made some stunning costume pieces in the 1940s through 1960s that sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Costume jewelry remained a small industry until the 1920s when fashion trends made it acceptable to wear "fakes".

Hot nickel plating was invented in the 1930s. Rhodium plating became popular because it resembled platinum. Chrome plating was used for a while. Chrome plated pieces are highly collectible because of the small number that were made.

During World War II, metals of any kind were in short supply. Jewelers improvised with wood, glass, painted plastic, leather, or any malleable substance. These pieces are also very collectible.

Fashion jewelry design and fabrication are equally as labor-intensive as the creation of fine jewelry. In the past, design and fabrication skills were passed down in families. Talented mold makers were once guaranteed a lifetime of well-paid work. Today, this labor is done in third world countries where children are set to work in poorly lit workshops where they breathe fumes and dust, sometimes going blind, and earning wages on which they barely survive. Think of this and save your money to purchase beautiful vintage pieces manufactured by skilled adults who earned good salaries in once-thriving US design and fabrication companies.