Antique vs. Modern Jewelry: What Makes Antique Jewelry So Different?

There is just something about antique jewelry. You can put an antique ring next to a modern one, and even if you know absolutely nothing about jewelry, chances are you will notice that something is different. Maybe the diamond isn't perfectly round. Maybe the gold has that wonderful warm color that doesn't quite look like modern gold. Maybe there are tiny flowers engraved along the shoulders or details hiding underneath the stone that nobody would even see while it was being worn.

And sometimes it is simply a feeling. Antique jewelry has lived a life before us, and I think you can see that in the pieces. But there are also some very real reasons antique jewelry looks so different from what is made today.

Those Wonderful Wonky Old Diamonds

This might be one of my favorite things about antique jewelry. Old diamonds were not cut with computers and modern precision equipment. They were individually cut, often by hand, and the cutter was working with the stone nature gave them. That is why old mine cuts, old European cuts, rose cuts and early transitional diamonds can look so wonderfully different from one another.

One might be slightly cushion-shaped. Another may be almost round, but not quite. You might see a high crown, a small table or that little open culet that looks like a dot when you look straight through the diamond. By modern diamond-cutting standards, some of them are downright quirky, and I love them for exactly that reason.

They were also cut for a very different world. Many of these diamonds existed before LED lights and jewelry-store spotlights. Candlelight, gaslight and the softer lighting of the time interacted beautifully with their broad facets. Instead of the fast sparkle we associate with many modern diamonds, an old cut can give you these wonderful big flashes of light. It is a completely different kind of beautiful.

Someone Actually Made This

This is something I find myself thinking about whenever we handle a particularly intricate antique piece: someone sat at a jeweler's bench and made this.

Before CAD design, lasers and so much of the technology jewelers have today, an incredible amount of jewelry was made and finished by hand. Metal was pierced, engraved, hammered, soldered and shaped. Tiny decorative details were added one at a time. Sometimes you can still see those little variations. One side might not be exactly like the other, the engraving may vary slightly, or a tiny flower may look a little different from its neighbor.

I don't see those things as flaws. I see the person who made it. There is something incredibly romantic about holding a ring made more than 100 years ago and realizing another person once sat at a bench, tools in hand, creating the details you're looking at today. They could never have known that more than a century later someone would still be admiring their work.

The Settings Had Personality Too

Antique jewelers apparently did not get the memo about keeping things simple, and thank goodness for that. Belcher settings, buttercups, clusters, shields, elaborate galleries, engraving, filigree and milgrain can make the setting every bit as interesting as the gemstone.

One of my favorite things to do with an antique ring is turn it sideways. Seriously. Some of the best parts are hiding underneath. You may find a beautifully pierced gallery, tiny scrollwork or details that nobody necessarily needed to put there. They were added because someone cared what the entire piece looked like, not just the part everyone could see.

Modern manufacturing can produce extraordinary precision, but antique jewelry belongs to a less exact world. A diamond may be slightly off-round. Matching stones might be more like sisters than identical twins. Engraving may have softened after a century of wear. Those aren't necessarily defects. These pieces weren't sitting untouched in boxes waiting for us to discover them. Someone wore them.

They went to dinners and weddings. Maybe they crossed an ocean. Maybe somebody wore that ring every day for 40 years. Most of the time we'll never know, which somehow makes me even more curious about them.

Of course, there is a difference between beautiful evidence of age and actual damage. Worn prongs, cracks, loose stones and poor repairs are condition issues and should always be disclosed. But a little softness from a hundred years of life? I'll take it.

Even the Gold Can Be Different

Photographs sometimes have a difficult time capturing the color of antique gold. Older jewelry can have wonderful shades of yellow, rose and even slightly greenish gold because of differences in the alloys used. Antique rose gold can have a beautiful coppery warmth, while old yellow gold can have a rich tone that doesn't always resemble modern jewelry.

White jewelry changed considerably too. Platinum allowed jewelers around the turn of the twentieth century to create incredibly delicate settings, while early white-gold alloys can look quite different from the bright rhodium-plated white gold we're accustomed to today. Sometimes the metal is half the beauty of the piece.

Jewelry Was Allowed to Be a Little Weird

This may actually be my favorite difference. Antique jewelry could be wonderfully strange.

Snakes, bugs, hands, buckles, stars, moons, horseshoes, flowers, swords, eyes, hearts and mourning jewelry containing someone's hair. They put just about everything into jewelry, and I absolutely love that they did.

Different periods developed personalities of their own. Victorian jewelry could be romantic, sentimental and sometimes wonderfully unusual. Art Nouveau brought flowing lines, flowers, insects, enamel and dreamy natural forms. Edwardian jewelry became incredibly delicate and lace-like. Then Art Deco arrived with geometry, contrast and bold lines and changed the mood completely.

Jewelry wasn't always simply decoration. It could commemorate someone you loved, remember someone you lost, celebrate an event or carry a private meaning. Sometimes we still understand the symbolism and sometimes that meaning disappeared with the person who originally owned the piece. There is something rather wonderful about the mystery of that.

Old Doesn't Automatically Mean Valuable

Something isn't valuable simply because it is old. Craftsmanship, condition, materials, design, gemstones, rarity and maker can all matter. And, frankly, sometimes a piece is just interesting. There are beautifully made pieces that are 70 years old that I would choose in a heartbeat over fairly ordinary pieces that happen to be 150 years old.

It is also important to distinguish between antique, vintage and jewelry that was simply made to look old. Generally, jewelry more than 100 years old is considered antique, while vintage jewelry is younger but comes from an earlier era. Modern reproductions inspired by antique designs can be beautiful too. There is nothing wrong with any of them. We just believe you should know what you're buying.

Maybe That's Why We Love It

This is where antique jewelry gets me. You see a ring and think, that's beautiful. Then you look closer and notice engraving you didn't see before. Then a tiny diamond tucked into the side. You turn it over and discover the gallery is covered in flowers. Then you realize the old diamond isn't quite round. Suddenly you've spent ten minutes staring at something barely an inch across.

Antique jewelry rewards curiosity.

These pieces have already existed for generations. They've been worn, loved, repaired, tucked away, inherited, forgotten and found again. Most of the time we will never know everywhere they have been or whose hands wore them before ours.

Then somehow, after 80 or 100 or 150 years, one ends up here.

Eventually, it finds another person.

I think that's pretty romantic.