Long Bohemian Gilt Metal Carved Crystal Bead Necklace

Ribbed crystal and goldtone beaded necklace with gold-plated clasp, circa 1970. Light scratches and tarnish.

Triple-strand necklace featuring pear-shaped Chinese cultured pearls dyed in a golden hue accented with faceted garnets and silver-tone metal flowers and butterflies. Push button ton...

This antique rare hand-pressed-glass necklace features semi-translucent grape-green large beads that are capped with gilt-brass filigree. Based on the combination of bead seams, spring-ring clasp, and metal findings on the unmarked faux Chinese-jade necklace, it dates to the late Victorian period most likely from Western Europe. Around WWI, hand presses, which stamped molten glass into a mold to create a bead with a hole and a seam, were often used to produce costume jewelry as a cottage industry in Germany and the Czech region. This was while there was a lack of factory machine presses and finishing tumblers that used sand to polish out the seam lines. Another reason that the cloudy green beads can be identified as atypically hand-pressed is that they are more opaque and therefore harder and less prone to breaking during formation than fully-translucent glass, which was better suited for automated-machine pressing. Also the green beads are an unusual swirled color including white, which suggests that their production was more limited than machine-pressing would enable. Without the bead-seams, this necklace could be mistaken for one by Coco Chanel. Her 1920s couture...

INDULGE IN THIS RARE ANTIQUE VICTORIAN OPAL, ROCK CRYSTAL AND GOLD BEAD NECKLACE. THE EXTRAORDINARY JEWEL HAS THREE OPEN WORK GOLD ACANTHUS LEAF MOTIF BEADS OF GREAT BEAUTY. ON EITHER SIDE OF THE FLOWER MOTIF BEADS ARE SPECTACULAR ROUND OPAL BEADS WITH ROUND FACETED ROCK CRYSTAL RONDELLES ON EITHER SIDE OF THE OPALS. THE OPALS ARE THE MOST GORGEOUS NATURAL ROUND OPALS WITH BLUE, GREEN, YELLOW AND ORANGE FIRE. THE NECKLACE DATES TO CIRCA 1860-1900. We all treasure the antique opal and rock crystal...