In the event you’ve been looking for classic costume jewellery for any time in any respect, you most likely acknowledge the title Monet. Some individuals yawn when this model comes up, and I get that. A lot of their jewellery from the ‘50s and ‘60s was tailor-made and never blingy. Nevertheless, whenever you dive deeper, there’s rather a lot to like about Monet.
They made some unbelievable necklaces within the ‘60s and early ‘70s, as an illustration, and it doesn’t matter one bit that they don’t have a single rhinestone within the design. They’re superb on the neck, and never worrying about shedding a stone whereas having fun with them is a big bonus. Their promoting marketing campaign, known as “hooded woman,” selling these necklaces is sort of glamorous as effectively should you’ve by no means taken the time to look it up.
What else? Listed below are a number of different belongings you most likely don’t find out about Monet which might be value including to your databank of jewelry-related information.
The Firm Made Licensed Movie star Jewellery
Brothers Michael and Joseph Chernow began the corporate, which grew to become Monet within the Nineteen Twenties as an “initials” enterprise. They bought monogrammed merchandise beginning with vehicle plaques and purses after which expanded into jewellery within the mid-Nineteen Thirties. Their early enterprise, Monocraft, allowed shoppers to get a monogrammed merchandise on the level of sale proper within the retailer, an innovation on the time. Along with all these initialed objects, Monocraft branched out briefly into celebrity-related jewellery.
Whilst you would possibly really run throughout among the Monocraft preliminary pins and bracelets, discovering their celebrity-licensed items is a bit more durable to do. Each the licenses for superstar jewellery that includes Shirley Temple and the Dionne Quintuplets had been signed in 1936. The initiatives had been rushed, nonetheless, and the jewellery wasn’t of the best high quality, so it wasn’t made to final. That, coupled with a restricted variety of objects being made for every license, equals collectibles that don’t come up on the market all that always at present.
Monet Jewelers was the First Monet Mark
It took operating throughout an Austro-Hungarian revival necklace marked Monet Jewelers to find that I had a chunk from the late Nineteen Thirties on my arms. Truthfully, I’d by no means even thought of Monet from their early years till that second.
As I researched, I found that the primary mark after the transition from Monocraft to Monet was certainly Monet Jewelers. This signature is written with Monet upper- and lowercase letters and Jewelers in script lettering. It’s often discovered on a small steel hold tag on necklaces and bracelets, as proven in Monet: The Grasp Jewelers by Alice Vega (which options one of many lovely “hooded woman” adverts on the quilt).
Some of the stunning issues about my necklace is that it didn’t strike me as being as previous in any respect. Since then, I’ve bought extra necklace kinds marked Monet Jewelers, and several other of them might be mistaken for Nineteen Sixties or ‘70s items; generally they’re given the designs and varieties of chain used of their building. However, Monet Jewelers items are all older and fascinating, they usually make a fantastic assortment in case you have the persistence to hunt them down.
Monet Used Toggle Clasps on Bracelets within the ‘40s
In the event you Google “when had been toggle clasps first used on bracelets,” you’ll get a solution stating they had been first used through the Bronze Age, and that’s true (though the clasps had been a bit completely different than what we affiliate with a toggle clasp at present). What’s acknowledged after that goes a bit off monitor. In actual fact, most individuals imagine that toggle clasps actually didn’t come about till Tiffany & Co. popularized them within the late Nineteen Nineties with their launch of “Return to Tiffany” jewellery.
Jewellery historians know that toggle clasps had been used lengthy earlier than then on bracelets, together with Monet designs courting to the Forties. At the least one in all these kinds is documented in an commercial courting to 1947, actually. Had been there others later? Maybe. Napier used toggle clasps on at the least one fashion within the Fifties, and I’ve personally owned a number of unmarked Nineteen Sixties bracelets with toggle clasps, so different firms might have made some throughout that interval as effectively.
In fact, we do know that the majority toggle clasp bracelets are a lot newer, together with many up to date kinds marked Monet. Don’t let anybody let you know {that a} classic bracelet from the ‘40s, ‘50s, or ‘60s can’t have an unique toggle clasp, although, as a result of that’s simply not true.
Monet Made Acrostic and Stanhope Jewellery within the ‘60s
One other enjoyable tidbit about Monet jewellery is that Susan Dey from “The Partridge Household” tv present was one of many younger fashions who appeared in Monet allure bracelet adverts within the late Nineteen Sixties. The ads, with a “my era’s received a allure of its personal” tagline, featured bracelets in silver and gold-tone steel. They’re distinctive as a result of every coordinating allure attaches with a spring ring, so you possibly can add and take away them very simply.
What’s even higher is that a few of these charms are fairly distinctive. From enameled snowmen and Christmas timber to airplanes and good luck charms, picks had been obtainable for all events. Nevertheless, many individuals don’t notice that a few these charms have hidden secrets and techniques.
Take a four-leaf clover allure with rhinestones for instance. Look a bit nearer and also you’ll discover the stones replicate the stones diamond, emerald, amethyst, and ruby. If you take the primary letter of every stone, it spells out d-e-a-r in acrostic style. One other allure with a hid message is more durable to see because it resides inside just a little steel church. Look via a small peephole on the facet and also you’ll discover a tiny model of the Lord’s Prayer—Monet’s revival of the stanhope. What makes these charms much more interesting is that the majority of them promote for lower than $25 every, and the bracelets are very inexpensive, too.
These are a number of of the lesser-known info about an organization that always takes a backseat to different classic costume jewellery manufacturers. Studying extra concerning the enterprise makes shopping for and promoting their jewellery all of the extra fascinating.
Pamela Siegel is a contract author and writer who has been educating collectors for greater than 20 years. Along with three books on subjects regarding antiques and collectibles, she ceaselessly shares her experience via on-line writing and articles for print-based publications. Pamela can also be the co-founder of Costume Jewellery Collectors Int’l (CJCI) and the proprietor of Stylish Antiques by Pamela.
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