Guide · 9 min read
Vintage Brooches: How to Identify, Date, and Value Them
Turn it over first. The back of a brooch tells you more about its age than the front: the catch, the pin, and the hinge. Then the materials narrow it down, and any maker’s mark does the rest. Most vintage costume brooches sell for modest amounts; signed makers, collectible types, and real precious materials are where the value is.
Step 1: Read the back
- A simple C-shaped catch, often with a pin stem that sticks out past the edge and a hand-made tube hinge, is typical of 19th- and early-20th-century brooches.
- A safety catch (a little lever or rotating lock) points to the 20th century, and is standard on most brooches made after about 1920.
- A mismatch between the front and back, like a shiny modern catch soldered onto an old brooch, usually means a repair.
These give you an “earliest possible” date, not an exact one. Our guide to dating jewelry by its clasps and findings covers catches, hinges, and the myths in more detail.
Step 2: Look for a mark
Check the back, the pin stem, and any raised plaque for a maker’s name or a metal stamp. Sterling and gold marks are covered in our hallmarks guide; signatures like Trifari, Coro, Weiss, and Boucher are in the costume jewelry marks guide. A signed costume brooch marked “Sterling” is a strong hint of the 1940s, when wartime metal restrictions pushed costume makers to silver.
Step 3: Identify the materials and style
| What you see | What it suggests |
|---|---|
| Woven or plaited hair under glass, black enamel, or jet-like black stone | Victorian sentimental or mourning jewelry, popular through the mid-to-late 1800s, especially after 1861 |
| Elements on tiny springs that tremble when you move (en tremblant) | A technique dating back to the 1700s, most popular in the mid-Victorian era; also revived later in costume jewelry |
| Celluloid (lightweight, often pastel or ivory-look plastic) | Mostly the 1920s to 1940s |
| Bakelite or Catalin (heavy, chunky, often carved plastic) | Mostly the 1930s and 1940s |
| Pairs of dress clips or a single fur clip | Dress clips from the 1920s and especially 1930s; fur clips mainly the 1930s and 1940s |
| A frame holding two removable clips (a “duette”) | Coro’s Duette design, made through the 1930s and 1940s |
| Patriotic or military motifs (insignia, flags, eagles) | “Sweetheart” jewelry, most common during World War II |
| A figural pin with a clear Lucite belly | A “jelly belly,” mostly 1940s, made famous by Trifari (see our Trifari guide) |
| Rhinestones with a rainbow, oil-slick sheen (aurora borealis) | About 1955 or later, when the coating was introduced. It doesn’t mean the piece is designer. |
Is it Bakelite?
Use more than one gentle test, since none is conclusive alone:
- Hot water and a sniff. Run the piece under hot tap water for a few seconds. Bakelite smells sharp and chemical (formaldehyde-like); celluloid smells of camphor; Lucite and modern plastics smell of nothing much. Skip this on anything that might be celluloid, which is fragile.
- The swab test. Rub a cotton swab with Simichrome polish or 409 cleaner on a hidden spot. Yellow usually means Bakelite. Black, heavily polished, or coated pieces can fail to react even when they’re genuine.
- Skip the hot-pin test. It leaves a permanent mark.
Is it a shell cameo?
- Turn it over. Shell cameos are cut from a curved shell, so the back is usually concave like a spoon. Molded plastic is often flat.
- Look closely. Under a loupe, carving shows crisp tool marks and planes; molded pieces look soft and slightly blurred.
- Feel it. Shell and stone stay cooler in your hand than plastic.
What brooches are worth
Brooch prices range wider than almost any other jewelry type, so it helps to know which market you’re in. A few completed auction sales show the spread:
- Victorian mourning: a Victorian onyx and pearl mourning brooch with hairwork sold for £168 (including buyer’s premium) at Bonhams in 2010.
- Carved Bakelite: a carved and painted Bakelite horse-head pin sold for $140 at Ripley Auctions; a pair of carved Bakelite animal brooches sold for about $111 at Jeffrey S. Evans.
- Fine antique jewelry: a diamond en tremblant flower brooch from about 1850 sold for $216,400 (including premium) at Bonhams Skinner in 2024. That’s precious stones and fine workmanship, not costume, and it’s the far end of the range.
Most costume brooches sell for far less than any of these. What lifts a brooch within its market:
- A maker’s signature from a collected name.
- Sterling or gold, confirmed by a mark or a test.
- Collectible types: carved Bakelite figurals, jelly bellies, en tremblant pieces, and well-made figurals generally.
- Original condition: all stones present and bright, intact enamel and Lucite, original pin and catch.
And what lowers it: replaced stones, cracked or cloudy Lucite, worn plating, a replaced pin stem, and over-polishing. To price yours, find completed sales of the same design, not asking prices; our guide to whether vintage costume jewelry is worth anything shows how.
Buying or selling brooches
Photograph the front, the back, the catch, and any mark, and measure the brooch across its widest point. Buyers can’t judge size or age without those. If you’re shopping, browse brooches and pins on StillSparkly, and ask sellers for a photo of the back if a listing doesn’t show one.
Related guides
How to Date Vintage Jewelry by Its Clasps and Findings
A clasp can’t give you a decade, but it can tell you the earliest a piece could have been made, as long as it’s original. Here’s how to read the hardware.
Vintage Costume Jewelry Marks: A Guide to Designer Signatures
A name on the back of a brooch tells you who made it. How that name is written, and what’s stamped next to it, often tells you when.
Is My Vintage Costume Jewelry Worth Anything?
Usually a little, sometimes a lot. The value is in the maker, the design, the construction, and the condition, and you can check all four at the kitchen table.
Have a brooch to identify?
Get a free estimate from a photo, or list it with close-ups of the front, the back, and any marks.