Sterling Silver & Marcasite Dress Brooch Set
You must be a subscriber, and be logged in to view price and dealer details.
Subscribe Now to view actual auction price for this item
When you subscribe, you have the option of setting the currency in which to display prices to $Au, $US, $NZ or Stg.
- Marcasite - Marcasite is a mineral, iron sulphide, but is rarely used in jewellery. Instead marcasite is the name given to iron pyrites, the mineral sold as marcasite which is identical in copmosition to iron sulphide but crystalises as a cube, making it more suitable for jewellery. It is a brassy yellow in colour and is also known as "fool's gold", and sits well with silver rather than gold becasue of its colour.
Marcasite has been used in jewellery since ancient times and became popular again in jewellery in the 18th century, continuing through to the early 20th century, with the settings becoming cheaper as time progressed, eventually earning the sobriquet "costume jewellery" along with other cheap jewellery that was made for a prevailing pattern and meant to be changed with each new outfit. - Sterling Silver - Sterling silver is a mixture of 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% of another metal, usually copper. Fine silver is 99.9% pure silver, and is relatively soft and the addition of the very small amount of copper gives the metal enough strength and hardness to be worked into jewellery, decorative and household objects.
This item has been included into following indexes:
-
brooches, set with
- marcasite 198
- other materials 1,913
- brooches, silver - silver items 2,617
Visually similar items
An antique gold signet ring, 15ct yellow gold, carat stamped to underside of shield, Victorian, made as a shield shaped signet ring of decorative engraved work, featuring a shield to centre, engraved, flanked by crescent moon motif, merging to wide foliate
A pair of diamond floral stud earrings, 18ct white gold, made as modern panel style studs, detailed throughout with channel set baguette cut diamonds, flanked by fine claw set rails of brilliant cuts, totalling throughout approximately 3.00ct, fitted with
Silver electroplated cherub decorated belt
A pair of 18ct. white gold and diamond set drop earrings, each as three linked tapered floral form clusters of diamonds, the 294 modern brilliant cut diamonds totalling 2.20ct, the 136 tapered diamonds totalling 2.56ct, TDW 4.76ct.