Etsy | Vintage Fine Jewelry

Archive for the ‘etsy’ tag

Vintage Lucky Number

Vintage Lucky Number

Can anyone provide info on this vintage butterfly wing pendant?

My nana has recently passed away and I was lucky enough to be left this gorgeous butterfly wing pendant. It was something of hers that I always admired but silly enough I never asked where when & where she got it. I have had a look around the internet and have found similar ones but nothing like this one. On the back it says Made In England, Stirling Silver and then what appears to be a serial number. I can't quite make out the first letter, either a B,P,R...etc followed by T220213.

If someone has any information on this type of pendant or can tell me where I could find out it would be much appreciated

Thank You!

I have also posted this on a forum with a picture attached so you can see a picture of it by clicking the link below

http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=1&nav=messages&webtag=ab-antiques&tid=2192

It is a P.

Stamped by Shiptons & Co.

It is a Crinolin Lady Pendant.

It was made by the Shipton Company, Birmingham, England after 1923.

PAT202213 was the patent number. Since it has this on the back it shows it was made after 1923. If it had ‘SILVER, PAT. APPLD. FOR’ on the back, it would have been made before 1923.

A little bit of background about this fascinating jewellery! Butterfly wing jewellery originated in England around the 1920’s. UK patent number 202213 was granted to the Shipton company, Birmingham in 1923 (although the Shiptons had been making this jewellery for some years previously). It became really fashionable, when the firm Thomas L. Mott mounted an exhibit featuring it at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924. It seems that the Shiptons stopped producing this jewellery in 1939, at the outbreak of the Second World War – more modern examples produced elsewhere are inferior in quality and the designs are not hand-painted. The designs were reverse painted on glass, backed with iridescent Morpho butterfly wings from South America, covered with a glass dome and (with the early British examples at least) set in Sterling silver. Commonly found themes are tropical scenes, ladies in crinolines and Dutch scenes. Although scenes such as Kingfishers are rarer and they even did two Egyptians on the banks of the Nile, with the Pyramids in the background.

I am sorry that I cannot find the exact one. But I hope the information was somewhat useful or at least interesting.