Estate jewelry: often antique

Sometimes people buy estate jewelry, which is a term people use to describe items that have been previously owned. Estate jewelry is usually gotten from the assets of people who are deceased, living, or are private entities, like a company. The term estate jewelry is often used to refer to items that are antique or vintage.

There are many categories of vintage, and they are usually divided depending on their time periods. The first one is Georgian, which is from years 1714 to 1837. This is usually handmade, which can sometimes mean that some of the pieces are not very good quality. It is very rare and usually has designs like leaves and birds, and other nature related designs. The pieces usually had precious stones in them too.

Early Victorian, also known as romantic, antique pieces are from the years 1837 to 1855. These items also had nature designs, but they were mostly etched into gold. Lockets and brooches were some of the most popular, everyday items. At night time, people would usually wear gemstones and diamonds.

Another era of antique items is the Mid-Victorian or grand period which spanned from 1856 to 1880. Many people wore mourning pieces because of the death of Queen Victoria's husband. Some of the more common stones to be used were onyx, jet, amethyst, and garnet, because everyone wanted to use dark and heavy stones. The designs also became more creative and deviated from just nature-inspired.

The Late Victorian period, also called the aesthetic period was from 1885 to 1900. In this period, many jewelers used bright, feminine gems like diamonds, sapphires, peridots, and spinels. There were a lot more star and crescent designs. It was also in this time period that hat pins became very popular.

The arts and crafts items era was from 1894 to 1923. This was during the Industrial Revolution, when items were being made by machines. So it was often very simple in pattern so that the machines could easily make them and they used uncut but colorful stones.

There was another overlapping period called the Art Nouveau period, which was from 1895 to 1915. During this period, the pieces again had designs that were inspired by nature. It usually follows curves and other natural looking designs, like flowers and butterflies. It often also depicts women with long hair who are turning into flowers or birds. This era is still very popular with collectors.

Another era of antiques was the Art Deco period which was from 1915 to 1935. This era took a lot of inspiration from art from the ancient Egyptians (helped along by the traveling King Tut exhibit), Greek and Roman architecture, and from the art of the American Indians. Cubism and Dadaism also heavily influenced the items made during this period.

The most recent period of antiques is Retro, which is classified to have happened from 1945 to 1960. This type was inspired by Hollywood. Because of this inspiration items in this period were very bold, colorful, and elaborate.