Pin this one down

OK all you smarties! We here at Two Phoebes have exactly ZERO green thumbs. (We like to think we have only gold and platinum thumbs). We sometimes come across flower jewelry, and end up spending hours sorting through google images of flowers and still cannot figure out what we are looking at. That's where you guys can come in and save the day. We happen to know a few botany-minded gardener types, so we're hoping someone just takes a look at this and knows instantly what it is.

So today's jewel is a lovely flower pin, shown here, that has 5 petals. The petals are very textured, giving them a soft appearance.

We are thinking some sort of violet, but have only seen one picture that supports that theory. See our cop-out copy here.

Big e-hugs to the person who leads us down the primrose path on this one.

Two Phoebes is proud to announce that we are featured in the fabulous
Jewelry Dose Daily Blog!

She's selected some of our rings as "very sexy"! Ooh la la!

Check it out in the link above. It's a great blog with lots of fun posts on all kinds of interesting jewelry she finds on the internet. Enjoy!

Today's little gem

A lot of people have been writing in asking for appraisals or information on their own jewels, sometimes things that have been left to them. I've decided to offer a few little helpful hints once in a while with the little tricks of the trade we use to identify gems and jewelry.

To that end, TODAY'S HELPFUL HINT: HOW TO TELL IF A PEARL IS REAL

Simply (gently) rub the pearl against your tooth. If it has grit, it's real. If it's a fake pearl, it will instantly feel like plastic or coated in some way. You should be able to tell right away.

Some cheap cultured pearls have only a very thin layer of nacre (essentially, oyster spit) over the a large plastic bead, which can wear off, so you may have some items where there is a gritty surface on one part and plastic on the other. We call these "cheapo pearls". (<-not an industry term. yet.)

Here's a pretty little basket that brings to mind those "international heritage" days in grade school. The pictures of people from "other lands" in their traditional dress. I'm sure I've seen this unusual basket design on the lady from Spain. Or maybe it was Holland? Or perhaps some part of China or Bali?

Anyone know a thing or two about baskets?

Announcing the debut of the Two Phoebes' blog!

The story goes like this: Phoebe and Phoebe's moms were in the jewelry business. One mom was in antiques, and the other is a jewelry designer in diamond jewelry. Both come from a long line of jewelers (four generations in this country alone).

Unfortunately for everyone, last year, one Phoebe's mom died, leaving a king's ransom of vintage jewelry to the family. The other Phoebe's mom (me) has decided to take on the enormous task of cataloging, researching, testing, pricing and selling off this spectacular and varied collection. To this end, I have started the e-commerce site https://twophoebes.com.

I've had some experience with vintage jewelry, but there are many things I don't know about these items, and it's been very interesting as I go through the discovery process. I am learning so much about history, fashion, jewelry styles, fabrication, materials, and really about so many things that I thought I'd both share it with you and also use this blog to reach out to the collective knowledge base of the internet to help me find things out about the jewelry I have.

I will be posting observations, pictures, my research, questions and general pleas for help in identifying things. I know there is a large community of people out there with great interest and knowledge about vintage jewelry so I'm hoping that people will be willing to impart their wisdom to me so I can properly identify things.

Let's start with this little charm here. I see it's a microphone, ABC (I have more of these charms - NBC and CBS as well) but my query is what decade is this microphone from? I googled "vintage microphones" and I can't find anything like it. Any info, leads, suggestions welcome!

Oh, and if you see anything on twophoebes.com that looks erroneous or that you can expand on, please feel free to post or email me at jedenfine@gmail.com.