Antique and Vintage Jewelry: For the Love of the Hunt

Feb 11, 2022

In today’s world, we have come to expect everything to be available at our convenience. Whether that’s googling information that once would have required a trip to the library, or finding the perfect pair of jeans online instead of spending a whole day visiting several stores to find one that has your size in stock.  These days it all comes so easy.  Sometimes, that ease takes a lot of the value away: It’s too easy to take things for granted and not appreciate what we have.

Enter, vintage and antique jewelry.  For those of us who covet finding just the right older piece to add to our collection, we know that we cannot, usually, Google search that piece the first moment we have a desire for it.  Nope.  We know this will be a quest.  It will take time and tenacity.  We need the right piece, at the right price, at the right time.  In many ways the stars have to align.  How many of us can recount a tale of finding the perfect piece after several years of searching, just tucked away in a pawn shop?  Perhaps you stumbled onto the right piece for you on Instagram after waiting for a decade.  Maybe a friend owns the piece you want and you tell her you will buy it if she ever wants to sell - and that dream comes true years later.  We all have stories - and oh do we love those stories!

Modern jewelry typically can’t touch this sentiment - you can generally find what you want pretty quickly or have it made for you if you can’t.  Not that modern pieces don’t have their place.  They absolutely do and so many collectors love to have new pieces where the stories of those pieces start with them.  The heirlooms of tomorrow!  But new is new.  For vintage and antique collectors, it doesn’t fill a desire like old pieces do…and it definitely won’t send you hunting and searching in some unusual places like a gold sniffing bloodhound!

In a society that values instant gratification, old jewelry lovers have come to value what it means to wait; to seek something for years; to value a purchase well beyond its financial value because it cannot be easily repeated.  In truth, there’s a level of enjoyment that accompanies the yearning and hunting.  True, we love ultimately finding that perfect blue zircon ring or perhaps rose cut diamond earrings, but it won’t be long before we pick up another quest.  We crave that hunt as much as the piece we are hunting for.  A fulfilled quest brings a satisfaction that could never be felt with instantly finding what you want with a Google search.  No, we’re here for the hunt.


Latest posts