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Vintage German Glass Leaf Pendants |
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Written by Jan Parker
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Tuesday, 04 September 2007 |
 Here in Maine we’re having a winter that was slow starting but seems to go on and on. As I write this, the snow is coming down again! One of the things I dislike about “snow days” is deciding whether to keep the store open for the sake of the brave customers who want to get out of the house and play with beads or close for the safety of our employees, some of whom live up to an hour away, in “the sticks.” We have employees that live in a little town called Turner, Maine. I’ve been there and it’s absolutely beautiful. I know it’s someplace past Auburn but don’t ask me to find it again! We also have employees from Windham and Buxton which are inland and always get hit hard with snow. Others live in Portland which is coastal and is usually well plowed but then there is the problem of getting out of the driveway! Especially at the end where the plow went by and left a pile of snow 3 feet high! Bowdoinham, Gardiner and even Nobleboro are also represented in our employee pool. It means you have to be sensitive to snow conditions not only in Freeport but inland as well. The weathermen here always makes it worse by hyping it up so you think you will die if you go outside your door. I think they have stock in the grocery store chains as it really gets people out to the store to stock up on bottled water and food.
 Winter is good for one thing though and that is using your time indoors to learn something new. I’ve been watching one of those home shopping jewelry shows to try to learn more about stones. I also ordered a course in gem identification which has been sitting on my desk for several weeks now, but I’ll get to it! A stone I love and I think is underrated is Garnet. When I grew up in the fifties, I used to love rifling through my mother’s jewelry box. She didn’t have a lot of fine jewelry but she did have several pieces that were handed down to her from her Aunts. They were probably pieces from the turn of the 20th century around 1890-1910 or so.
Each of “the aunties” had a gold locket with a little diamond in the front and their initials elegantly inscribed on the back. Inside were little pictures of people either I didn’t know or didn’t recognize. In Aunt Julia’s locket, there was a picture of an old boyfriend that she never married. She never got over him leaving apparently and he was the love of her life. She never married anyone else, she kept hoping he’d come back to her. Aunt Grace had a picture of my grandfather on one side of her locket and a picture of her father (my great grandfather) on the other. She was married to a man I just remember as a quiet, grumpy old man you didn’t talk to, but he evidently threatened  to kill himself if she didn’t marry him. So she did. He didn’t rate a place in her locket however. Aunt Grace coped with her unhappy marriage by making beautiful heirlooms, some of which I have in my home today; a hand crocheted cotton bedspread and several crewel work pictures. The Aunties also handed down a ring and a pendant. The ring was gold and had small garnets and seed pearls in it. It was probably only 10kt gold as a lot of the jewelry made at that time was but it makes me have a fondness for garnet and seed pearls. I wore the pendant, which is called a Lavalier, on my wedding day as “something old.” Over the years I have lost it and I sometimes look around on eBay to find another like it as I feel really bad about that! How wonderful it is that women continue to pass down a little piece of themselves to grandchildren, nieces, daughters and friends! Having a personal item from someone in your past like a piece of jewelry or something handcrafted by them (or both!) means so much. Uh oh, I’m inspired now to make a necklace of garnet and freshwater pearls! Wouldn’t that be pretty?
Here are this week's auction links!
eBay Auction
Rare Vintage German
Pressed Glass Leaf Pendants
eBay Auction
Vintage Italian Venetian
Drizzled Foil Beads
eBay Auction
Vintage German Circa 1940's
Cranberry & Crystal Givre Glass |
