Long before rhinestones were glued into mid-century brooches, jewelers were cutting glass by hand to sparkle like diamonds. That glass is called paste, and the best of it is collected as seriously as the real thing.
What paste means
Paste is glass that has been cut and polished to look like a gemstone. The classic recipe uses glass with a high lead content, which makes it brighter and gives it more fire than ordinary glass. It is also soft enough to cut into almost any shape, so a jeweler could shape each stone to fit the design exactly.
Where it came from
Glass gems go back to ancient times, but paste as collectors know it took off in 18th-century Paris. A jeweler named Georges Frédéric Strass perfected a brilliant leaded glass in the 1730s and became jeweler to the King of France in 1734. His stones were so admired that the wealthy wore paste for its own sake, not just as a stand-in for diamonds. In much of Europe, rhinestones are still called strass after him.
Paste vs. rhinestone
The two words overlap. Rhinestones were originally rock crystal pebbles gathered from the Rhine River, and the name later passed to the glass stones that copied them. Today, paste usually points to older hand-cut glass stones or to quality European glass, especially Czech and Austrian. Rhinestone is the everyday word for the machine-cut stones in 20th-century costume jewelry. You'll see sellers use both words for the same piece.
Georgian paste
The paste collectors prize most comes from the Georgian era, roughly 1714 to 1837. These stones were cut by hand and set in silver, with the back of the setting closed and a thin sheet of foil behind each stone to bounce light back through it. Because glass was easy to shape, the stones sit tight against each other with very little metal showing, something that was far harder to do with diamonds. Shoe buckles like the pair below were one of the most popular ways to wear it.
Black dot paste: the most sought after
Of all antique paste, black dot paste is the most sought after. Look straight down into the stone and you'll see a tiny black spot in the center. The jeweler painted that dot on the culet, the point at the bottom of the stone, before setting it. It copied the look of the old-cut diamonds of the day, which show a dark spot in the middle when viewed from above, and it gave the glass extra depth.
Black dot paste turns up on Georgian pieces, mostly from the 1700s, and it was only done on carefully hand-cut stones. That makes the dot a strong sign of age and quality, and it's why collectors hunt for it and pay a premium when they find it.
How to spot older paste
- Check the back. A closed back, with no light showing through the setting, points to an early piece.
- Look at the shapes. Hand-cut stones vary slightly and are often cut to fit the design, while machine-cut stones are identical.
- Look at the facets under magnification. Glass is softer than diamond, so the facet edges on old paste look gently rounded instead of razor sharp.
- Look for the black dot in the center of each stone.
Later paste and Czech glass
In 1892 Daniel Swarovski patented a machine that cut glass stones quickly and precisely, and sparkling jewelry became affordable for almost everyone. Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic, grew into one of the great centers for glass stones, and Czech paste from the early and middle 20th century is collected today for its clarity and sparkle.
Caring for paste jewelry
Keep it dry. Water can slip behind a stone and dull the foil that gives it its sparkle, so never soak paste or rinse it under the tap. Wipe gently with a soft dry cloth, put your jewelry on after perfume and hairspray, and store pieces separately so the stones don't scratch each other.
Paste in the shop
We have a Czech clear paste glass brooch in the shop now, a mid-century square pin with baguette and round stones in a dark wirework frame. It's 20th-century Czech paste, not Georgian, and it shows how much sparkle well-cut glass can deliver. You can also browse our vintage rhinestone jewelry for more one-of-a-kind pieces. Every piece is the only one we have.