Whether you call them puffy hearts, puffed hearts, répoussé hearts, whether they're antique or vintage, sterling silver or gold filled, charm bracelets filled with old heart charms are tremendously popular with today's collectors.  Because they're so popular, they can be very expensive. And because their age and authenticity is genuinely difficult for the non-expert to assess, it's all too easy to spend a lot of money on a heart or heart bracelet that isn't what it's represented as.  There are quite a few sellers, including those who regularly sell hearts, who don't know what they're selling, though they may sound as if they do.  And then there are the sellers who do know but don't want you to know (because if you did, you wouldn't pay vintage prices for hearts that are not really vintage!).

So if you collect these sentimental, lovely tokens of affection from the past, you need to educate yourself in order to buy wisely. The guidelines below really just scratch the surface of a big, complicated topic, but they'll get you started.  They're a condensed version of a handout I wrote to accompany a lecture on antique and vintage hearts that I and Joanne Schwartz (who wrote Charms and Charm Bracelets: The Complete Guide) gave at the Vintage Fashion and Costume Jewelry convention in the fall of 2005.

Inevitably you'll make mistakes in your buying; it happens to us all.  Learn from those mistakes, and as time goes on, you'll become wiser and the mistakes will become fewer.

Terminology: I use a bit of shorthand below. By Victorian I mean any heart made between about 1880 and the beginning of World War I in 1914; their real heyday was in the ten years or so surrounding the turn of the century. By 1940s I mean any heart made from the later thirties through the fifties; they were at the height of their popularity in the forties but lingered on for another decade. Anything made from the 1970s on I consider a repro, since these hearts are lower-quality knockoffs of earlier hearts; they can be pretty and they have their place, but they have no real collectible value. (As for the years between World War I and the latter half of the thirties, hearts existed but were not in style, and so very few were produced.  Anytime you see a heart described as 1920s, you can be pretty sure that it's actually a decade or two younger unless there's proof of its age in the form of an engraved date.)

Keep in mind in reading what follows that there are exceptions to everything--these are guidelines to help you in identification, not hard-and-fast rules. I'm sorry that the photos are so small and may therefore not be too helpful, but their size is predetermined by eBay.

BRACELETS

VICTORIAN:  Hearts are on looped bangles or hollow-linked chains, plain or répoussé with hand-chased finishing. Closures are almost always padlocks, usually keyed, never opening with a spring. Mixtures of silver and gold-filled hearts are common.

1940s:   Bracelets are chains, often delicate in scale, usually solid; links may have machine-stamped decoration.  Closures are often padlocks opening with a spring, but a variety of closures were used. Hearts are predominantly silver, occasionally gold-filled.

REPROS:  They may be on a 1940s or earlier bracelet but are often on a 1960s or later bracelet, sometimes rhodium-plated. 

NOTE:  Dating the chain isn't conclusive, since the hearts may be newer or older than it, or a mixture of dates.  However, any bracelet on a rhodiumed chain is a recently assembled one, not a true vintage bracelet.

At left is a characteristic Victorian bracelet, at right a characteristic 1940s one:

       

HEARTS

Profile and construction

VICTORIAN:  May be almost flat (sometimes solid), extremely puffy, or anywhere in between. Edges appear seamless or almost so.

1940s:  Usually of medium thickness but may be flatter.  Edges may appear virtually seamless, open (with a tiny fold point at the tip of the heart), or overlapping.

REPROS:  Edges usually appear seamless.

Engraving (if present)

VICTORIAN:  Generally very skillful, often highly embellished.  Names can be helpful if they're obviously old-fashioned ones like Nellie or Annie.

1940s:  May be very artful but is seldom embellished.  Sometimes machine-engraved, sometimes scribed by the giver or owner and having the "loving hands at home" look. Again, names like Betty Sue or Jeff can be clues.

REPROS:  No engraving--or very rarely will have a name stamped in as part of the embossing when a mold was made from an older engraved heart.

Two hearts with the same design, close to identical in size and weight.  Which is Victorian and which is the 1940s version? It's almost impossible to tell until you turn over the hearts and see the skillful engraving of the old-fashioned name Homer on the right-hand heart, in comparison with the looser engraving of the initials J.D. on the heart at left:

Marks

VICTORIAN:  Marked STERLING in various positions, often in raised letters.  May be marked 925 over 1000 without the fraction line.  Makers' marks are uncommon.

1940s:  Marked STERLING, most often at lower right.  The only common maker's mark is Walter Lampl's WL in a shield (used into the late 50s).

REPROS:  Marked STERLING, almost always at lower right, or 925, sometimes on the jump ring. Any heart marked 925 with no other number is a repro.

Designs

VICTORIAN:  May have simple beaded edges, with or without an engraved design at center, usually floral.   Embossing is finely detailed, extremely crisp, clean, sharp, often very deep and dimensional.  Patterns are often asymmetric.  Designs tend to be less sentimental and more sophisticated than those of forties hearts at the same time that they're extremely ornate. 

1940s:  Embossing is usually shallower and not as crisp as that of Victorian hearts, though it may be finely detailed (but less so than in Victorian examples, especially apparent if you compare one of the designs produced in both periods).  Designs tend to be somewhat less ornate than Victorian ones but more sentimental, sweeter, more naive, and more often symmetric than those of Victorian hearts.

REPROS:  Reproductions are of 1940s designs, not Victorian ones (except where the forties design was itself originally Victorian).  They may be restrikes from old molds, or from molds made from old hearts, or they may be rough interpretations of old hearts, or entirely new designs.  The embossing is always less crisp and detailed than that of older hearts.  The quality of the embossing and design ranges from quite nice to really awful.

An extremely ornate amethyst-set Victorian heart at left, and a delightful but simpler, less sophisticated 1940s heart at right:

      

The minutely detailed Victorian version of the Home Sweet Home theme at left, the looser but still very fine 1940s one at right:

A genuine 1940s handclasp heart at left, next to a clumsy 1980s repro at right:

This time the 1940s original is on the right, the copy on the left.  The repro isn't an awful one, but compare the lack of definition of the scrolled border and the leaf  to that of the much more finely detailed 1940s original:

Stones

VICTORIAN:  Stones are rose-cut or cabochons, genuine or simulated, usually in hand-done gypsy settings.

1940s:  Stones are rhinestones or glass cabochons, never genuine gemstones.  Gypsy-style settings are mimicked with machine embossing, or stones are merely glued into depressions.

REPROS:  Rhinestones are glued into depressions.

Enamel

VICTORIAN:  Enamel is fired vitreous enamel, usually transparent.

1940s:   Enamel may be vitreous or cold enamel (i.e., paint).  The enamel is often applied less carefully than on Victorian hearts and may cover areas it wasn't meant to.  Enameled guilloché hearts with hand-painted roses date to the forties, not the Victorian era. (Be aware that the term "guilloché" is very often misused on eBay to describe enameling that isn't guilloché at all.  To learn what guilloché enameling really is, read the excellent guide by wabbit-king, The Guilloché Enamelling Process and Charm Collecting.)

REPROS:  "Enamel" is resin that mimics enamel, often applied very thickly and sloppily.

A Victorian Cupid or Eros at left, a 1940s one at right, both with vitreous enamel; note the engraved details of the figure on the older heart, versus the plain figure on the forties one:

TWO CLUES THAT A HEART IS A REPRO

Repros made circa the 1980s were sold with soldered jump rings (I have no idea why).  If you find a heart not on a bracelet with a soldered jump, or suspended from a bracelet by a jump attached to a soldered jump attached to the heart, 99.9% of the time the heart is a repro.

The chemicals used to give repros an aged appearance often result in a distinctive pinkish-purple color.  Very dark blotchy areas alternating with lighter ones are common.  Sometimes there's a chemical residue in low-lying areas that you can scrape off with a fingernail.

Three repros of 1940s hearts; note the sketchy detailing, the odd colors caused by chemical "aging," and the soldered jump rings:

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If you found this guide helpful, you might also enjoy reading my other three guides for vintage charm collectors.

What are my vintage charm credentials?  I've been a collector and dealer for years, and started eBay's Vintage Charms & Charm Bracelets group, which I lead.  I was the technical advisor for Charms and Charm Bracelets: The Complete Guide, by Joanne Schwartz (Schiffer Books, 2005), which includes many photos of charms from my collection, and together with Joanne lectured on antique and vintage charm bracelets at the 2005 Vintage Fashion and Costume Jewelry convention in Providence, RI.  I'm a member of eBay's jewelry category Voices program. And yes, I adore vintage charms!           

Important note!  The Items from eBay Sellers shown to the right of this guide are chosen by eBay, not by me, so please don't assume that I have anything to do with their selection, or that I endorse them in any way.

 
Copyright © 2006 gelatogrrl.  This material may not be reproduced in any form, or linked to electronically, without the express written permission of the author.