Best Jewelry Boxes

The term vintage jewellery covers many different periods of time, whereas antique jewellery is 50 years old or more. Among the different periods of time which the term’ vintage’ encompasses are Georgian, Victorian, Art Nouveau, Edwardian and Art Deco.

Georgian rings were made between the years 1714 and 1837. They were all handmade and incorporated nature themes such as birds and plants. They often used precious stones in their designs, and their rarity makes them both expensive and difficult to find.

Victorian jewellery was produced in the reign of Queen Victoria of England between 1837 and 1900. Victorian engagement rings used a wide range of gemstones including diamond, garnet, sapphire, peridot, onyx and amethyst. Yellow gold was very popular as a metal for rings of this period. In a similar way to Georgian rings, Victorian engagement rings often were themed on nature. Settings were made to look like leaves, with gemstones set to resemble a flower amongst the leaves. The snake or serpent ring was also popular, consisting of two snakes entwined representing the couple. The LOVE ring and the DEAREST ring were also very popular. These rings used the first letter from the name of each gemstone to create the words love or dearest.

Art Nouveau rings where produced from around 1895 to 1915. The engagement rings of this period often had designs based on flowers or butterflies and had a very feminine appearance with flowing curves.

Edwardian engagement rings were produced during the reign of King Edward VII of England from 1901 to 1910. The rings of this period frequently used platinum with filigree and millegrain work. Diamonds were popular in this era in addition to rubies and emeralds.

Art Deco jewellery was produced from the 1920s through to the 1940s. The rings of this period were quite big and bold, using large gemstones or large clusters of gemstones such as diamonds. Popular ring metals of this time were rhodium, palladium and platinum. Vintage Art Deco engagement rings are one of the most popular types of jewellery today.

Vintage and antique engagement rings can be found on sale at specialist jewellers on the Internet, or at antiques dealers and antiques fairs. Cheap antique rings are hard to find, but the quality of these rings is usually very high.

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When you go out shopping for your engagement ring, you don’t have to be swayed by convention and opt for the standard solitaire diamond ring. There are many more unusual engagement rings on the market, which are still incredibly beautiful, but they allow you to break away from tradition, and wear something which better reflects your own personality and style. And because these engagement rings are so different, people will still be commenting on them years into the future, rather than just saying how beautiful they are on the day you get engaged, only to be forgotten and ignored forever afterwards. There are hundreds of wonderful designs these days which offer something different, whether it is unusual gemstones or unconventional ring settings. Here’s a few ring ideas to get you started in your search:

Gemstone Engagement Rings – apart from the standard diamonds, there are several other gemstones which look great on engagement rings. Many couples are turning towards more colorful stones these days with the traditional ruby (which was used extensively for engagement rings in the past), sapphire, and the more unusual aquamarine and amethyst. Many of these precious and semi-precious stones are cheaper than diamond, so they offer a good alternative in tough economic times. They also tend to have special meanings ascribed to them, which can add to their appeal for some couples.

Rare Gemstone Rings - opting for an engagement ring which contains one of the very rare gemstones such as tanzanite, zultanite, or alexandrite, will certainly provide you with a wow factor, and also something to spark conversations when other people see the ring. You might be asked to tell the story of the gemstone, as many people will not have heard of these unusual gems, and will of course, probably never have seen one before. This is definitely a good choice if you want something that is not mass produced for the large jewelry superstores.

Cultural Engagement Rings – for a more unusual idea, it is probably worth looking for one of the cultural rings. For example there are lots of rings which have existed for a very long time, having been passed down the generations. A good example is the Russian catholic trinity rings, which would be great as engagement rings. These have become more and more popular over the last few years, so you might need to rush to get one, but they are available in a range of different colors of metal, and in a variety of styles.

Fancy Diamond Rings - fancy diamond rings contain colored diamonds rather than the more usual colorless stones we normally expect to see. They tend to be far more expensive as they are rarer, and the people who are normally seen wearing them are the celebrities. So Katherine McPhee, for example, has a fancy diamond ring containing pink and yellow gems, and Mariah Carey has one with a large pink central diamond surrounded by lots of smaller deeper pink ones.

One of the best places to start, if you are going to look for an unusual engagement ring, is the Internet. There are loads of great online stores which will have a collection of rings that will be very tempting. A word of caution though, is that you should always check that the store is reputable before buying from them. What you should find on some of these stores is the kind of rare gemstone rings already mentioned, but the other thing to think about is what metal you want the band to be made out of. The usual metals are platinum, yellow gold and white gold, but rose gold is starting to make something of a comeback, since Tom Cruise bought Katie Holmes a ring made from platinum and rose gold!

Making a decision to opt for unusual engagement rings is ideal because it enables you to exercise you own sense of personal style rather than unthinkingly conforming to what other people say you should wear, and so it allows you to exude individuality.

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