How to Date Your Vintage Jewelry Ring

A lot of costume jewelry was designed during the same time as authentic vintage jewelry. If you have discovered a vintage jewelry ring that you would like to buy, there are some things you can look for yourself to determine if it is genuine or not.

After 1956 jewelry designers started buying copyrights for their jewelry. If your piece has a “c” engraved in the band or under the setting, then you know it was made after 1956. Prior to this time jewelers used a patent to protect their designs. Your vintage jewelry ring may or may not display a patent number. If it does, you can research it to get a pretty good idea of the age of your piece.

You can also look for designer marks that may help to date your vintage ring or other vintage jewelry. You can easily do a search online for a database of jewelers’ identifying marks of the time period. For example, if a piece says West Germany, then you can assume that it was made after 1946 when Germany split into West and East Germany.

Another entertaining way to help date your vintage jewelry ring is to study some advertisements from the day. If you search the archives of old magazines, you might just see a picture of your piece, and the date on the cover will give you a pretty good clue as to the date it was made! Plus looking back through these old magazines can be a lot of fun! You can really get a feel for what life was like during the times by reading them.

Of course, the more you know about vintage jewelry in general, the better you will be able to tell its age. Learn as much as you can about the styles, and you will soon know the time period your vintage jewelry ring probably came from.