Vintage Guides

How to Care for Vintage Jewelry guide header, Oddly Darling Vintage
How to Care for Vintage Jewelry: Cleaning, Storing and Wearing Your Treasures
Vintage jewelry needs gentle care. Learn how to clean rhinestones, costume jewelry, sterling, gold, pearls, stones and plastics safely, how to store them, and the mistakes that ruin old pieces. Read more...
Lucinda Pins and House Pins collector's guide header, Oddly Darling Vintage
Lucinda Pins: A Collector's Guide to Lucinda Yates House Pins and More
Lucinda pins are colorful, glossy collage brooches handmade by artist Lucinda Yates in Maine, many made to support charities. Learn their history, the different series, how to identify them and... Read more...
Natural Stones in Vintage Jewelry guide header, Oddly Darling Vintage
Natural Stones in Vintage Jewelry: A Guide to Turquoise, Agate, Jade, Onyx and More
From turquoise and agate to jade, onyx, malachite and tiger's eye, learn the natural stones used in vintage jewelry, how to recognize them, how to spot fakes, and how to... Read more...
Vintage Gold Jewelry marks, gold filled and plated guide header, Oddly Darling Vintage
Vintage Gold Jewelry: Gold Marks, Gold-Filled vs Plated, and Why It's Back
Bold vintage gold is back. Learn what gold stamps like 14K and 585 mean, how gold-filled differs from gold-plated and gold-tone, and how to care for vintage gold pieces. Read more...
Art Deco Jewelry guide header, Oddly Darling Vintage
100 Years of Art Deco Jewelry: How to Recognize the Style
2026 marks a century of Art Deco. Here's how to recognize Art Deco jewelry, the hallmarks of the style, and how to tell true period pieces from later revivals. Read more...
Vintage Lucite and Beaded Necklaces guide header, Oddly Darling Vintage
Vintage Lucite and Beaded Necklaces: How to Spot the Real Thing
Chunky Lucite and beaded necklaces are back. Learn how to tell vintage Lucite from modern plastic, spot quality beadwork, and style these bold pieces now. Read more...
Vintage Scatter Pins guide header, Oddly Darling Vintage
Scatter Pins: The Little Vintage Brooches Everyone Is Wearing Again
Scatter pins are tiny vintage brooches made to be worn in groups. Here's their history, the makers to look for, and fresh ways to style them on lapels, hats and... Read more...
Inherited Vintage Jewelry: What Is It Worth? guide header, Oddly Darling Vintage
Inherited a Jewelry Box? How to Tell What Your Vintage Jewelry Is Worth
Cleaning out Mom's or Grandma's jewelry box? Here's how to sort what's special from what's sentimental, spot valuable vintage marks, and decide whether to keep, sell or pass it on. Read more...
Vintage Art Deco style green onyx pin tray with arched black cat, from Oddly Darling Vintage
Art Nouveau vs. Art Deco: How to Tell the Two Styles Apart
Art Nouveau (about 1890 to 1910) came first, with flowing lines and flowers. Art Deco (about 1920 to 1940) followed, with bold geometry. Here's how to tell them apart. Read more...
Millefiori Glass Beads guide header with vintage millefiori bead bracelet, Oddly Darling Vintage
What Is Millefiori Glass? A Guide to Millefiori Beads, Paperweights and Murano Style Jewelry
A thousand flowers frozen in glass: here's how millefiori is made, where it comes from, and how to tell Venetian Murano millefiori from Murano style. Read more...
Collecting Brighton Charms guide header with silver charm bracelet, Oddly Darling Vintage
Collecting Brighton Charms: How to Spot Real Brighton Jewelry, Marks and Retired Charms
Hearts on the clasp, a little B on the charm: here's how to recognize real Brighton jewelry, what the charms are made of, and why retired charms are worth a... Read more...
Real or Faux Pearls guide header with faux pearl brooch, Oddly Darling Vintage
Real or Faux Pearls? How to Tell Freshwater, Cultured, Glass and Plastic Pearls Apart
Grandma's pearls: real, cultured, glass or plastic? Here's how to tell, from the tooth test to the drill hole, plus what black freshwater pearls really are. Read more...
Vintage brown marbled Lucite folding lorgnette glasses with aurora borealis rhinestones
What Is Lucite? A Guide to Identifying Vintage Lucite and Telling It From Bakelite and Celluloid
Lucite was the glamorous plastic of the mid-century. Here's where it came from, what collectors look for, and how to tell it from Bakelite and celluloid. Read more...
Art Deco J.C. Warner jade green celluloid ring box with a raised floral lid, from Oddly Darling Vintage
What Is Celluloid? A Guide to Identifying Vintage Celluloid and Telling It From Bakelite
Celluloid was the first popular plastic, behind Victorian dresser sets, Art Deco ring boxes, kewpie dolls and pin-back buttons. Here's what celluloid is, how to recognize it, how it differs... Read more...
Vintage gold-tone link bracelet with black glass stones
How to Date Vintage Costume Jewelry: Marks, Clasps, Findings and Materials
Copyright symbols, clasps, plating and stones all leave clues. Here's how to put them together to date vintage costume jewelry. Read more...
Vintage signed Cathe yellow guilloche enamel brooch
What Is Enamel Jewelry? A Guide to Guilloché, Sugared and Painted Enamel
Enamel gives vintage jewelry its color, from glassy guilloché to frosty sugared finishes. Here's how the main types of enamel differ, how to spot damage, and how to care for... Read more...
Vintage damascene style hinged bangle with enamel rose panels in black and gold-tone
What Is Damascene Jewelry? A Guide to Toledo Damascene and Damascene Style Pieces
That black-and-gold jewelry with tiny golden vines and birds is damascene, an ancient metal inlay art. Here's how real Toledo damascene is made, how to spot damascene-style look-alikes, and how... Read more...
Back of a vintage Sarah Coventry brooch showing the maker's mark
Signed vs. Unsigned Brooches: What a Maker's Mark Does to Value
Does a maker's mark make a brooch worth more? Usually, but not always. Here's what a signature adds, when unsigned pieces are just as valuable, and what really drives the... Read more...
Vintage ornate sterling silver statement ring with a large golden stone
How to Identify Sterling Silver in the Wild: 925 Marks and Simple Tests
Sterling or silver plate? Learn the marks that mean sterling, the ones that don't, and a few quick checks you can do at an estate sale or thrift store. Read more...
Oval micromosaic brooch showing Roman temple ruins in tiny glass tesserae, set in a beaded gold-tone frame
What Is a Micromosaic? A Guide to Italian Mosaic Jewelry
A micromosaic is a tiny picture built from slivers of colored glass. Here's how they're made, where they came from, how to tell micromosaic from pietra dura and what to... Read more...
Vintage cameo brooch with a white profile portrait on black in a gold-tone rope frame
Cameo Materials Guide: Shell, Stone, Lava, Glass and More
Shell, agate, lava, coral, glass or plastic? A plain-language guide to the materials cameos are made from, how to tell them apart and how to care for them. Read more...
Vintage Sarah Coventry gold-tone rose brooch with an amber center stone
Sarah Coventry Jewelry: History, Marks and How to Date It
A short guide to Sarah Coventry jewelry: the home party history, how to read the maker's marks, how to narrow down a date and what to check before you buy. Read more...
Back of a vintage gold-tone brooch showing the pin, hinge and safety clasp
How to Date a Vintage Brooch by Its Pin Back and Clasp
The back of a brooch can tell you its age. Learn to recognize C-clasps, tube hinges, trombone clasps and rollover safety catches, and what each one says about when a... Read more...
Vintage Lisner white thermoset leaf bracelet in silver-tone metal, from Oddly Darling Vintage
What Is Thermoset Plastic? A Guide to Mid-Century Thermoset Jewelry
Thermoset is the smooth, molded plastic of 1950s and 1960s costume jewelry, the leaves and cabochons that Lisner and other makers set in gold-tone and silver-tone metal. Here's what the... Read more...
Teardrop synthetic opal statement ring in a silver-tone setting, from Oddly Darling Vintage
What Is Synthetic Opal? A Guide to Lab-Created, Natural and Imitation Opal
The word opal on a jewelry tag can mean a stone mined from the earth, one grown in a lab or a piece of glass made to look like one.... Read more...
Vintage carving fork with a butterscotch Bakelite handle, steel tines and a safety guard, from Oddly Darling Vintage
What Is Bakelite? A Guide to Identifying and Testing Vintage Bakelite
Bakelite is the warm, heavy early plastic behind 1930s bangles, carved brooches and butterscotch kitchen handles, and plenty of later plastics get mislabeled as the real thing. Here's what Bakelite... Read more...
Vintage aurora borealis rhinestone flower cluster brooch with iridescent teal, pink and blue stones
What Is Aurora Borealis Rhinestone? A Vintage Jewelry Guide
Aurora borealis, or AB, rhinestones flash pink, blue and gold all at once. Here's what the finish is, where it came from, how it helps date vintage jewelry and how... Read more...
Vintage Czech clear paste glass brooch with baguette and round stones in a dark wirework frame, from Oddly Darling Vintage
What Is Paste Jewelry? A Guide to Paste Rhinestones and Black Dot Paste
Paste is glass cut by hand to sparkle like a gemstone, and the best of it is collected as seriously as the real thing. Here's what paste is, how it... Read more...