Sunday, March 6, 2011

Collecting Antique Hatpins
















The snow went away and it returned last evening as we attended mass. Once again the foliage's and fields are bright white... the temps are suppose to rise to make melting a possibility once again..
I am hoping to find some energy and inspiration and be creative this afternoon... You can bet however I won't be taking that little bottle of 5 hour energy they are offering us on every other TV commercial... Gosh, that stuff scares me... While sorting through my junk jewelry I found a couple old pieces I thought could be made into lovely hat pins for display... With the appeal of collecting Victorian and vintage comes the desire of collecting hat pins.. I have several of which I have shared with you before.. Hatpins have been used as hat fasteners since the middle ages... but the most recognized are the Victorian embellishments.. By the mid 1800's women were giving up the bonnet ribbons to keep their hats on when encountering a windy or stormy day... Opting instead for the hatpins to do the job...... A FACT...... I found to be very interesting was the Victorian period wore very large hats... keeping them on required very large hatpins... With the suffragette movement in the early 1900's came fear of radical women that had 12" long hatpins were using them as weapons... A LAW..... was passed stating hatpins could only be 9" long.. this law was introduced in 1909.... With the shorter hat pins came the use of smaller hats... The flapper era of the 1920's wore cloches that were very close to the head and required not using the hat pin...
When collecting hat pins, of you are collecting for value you should be careful... Many are tricks of the language... like saying Victorian instead of Victorian style.... Many copies are made such as I may do with these today for my own display... I will make a couple using antique gems but cannot consider them old or antique... or original.... although I find them very pretty for display... I have several lovely beauties however ... along with lovely holders.... If you choose to have a display however at a budget friendly amount... old shakers that have lost their mates through the years make a lovely holder... making sure the holes are large enough to hold the pins... without having to make them larger of which can be done however...
A little clue... a die hard collector knows when a hatpin is a marriage of a old brooch and a pin stem...as I will be doing... Glued stems are a give-a-way...in knowing a restored pin... When having original pins... handpainted or lovely gems and rhinestones... they can be somewhere between 50.00 to 1500.00... My best ones are value of about 95.00 each and I have about 4 in that value range and several others 50.oo or below... I find the hatpin holder to be the best way of display as they show the lovely toppers.....
PS....... I HAVE SHOWN ONE HATPIN THAT IS NOT A OLD PIN... CAN YOU IDENTIFY IT ?







4 comments:

Edie Marie's Attic said...

Hi Marietta!

What a great post on hatpins! I really learned a lot from you today. I have 3 hatpins that appear to be old that I found among my one aunt's things after she passed. One is a spectacular amethyst sparkly large head. I was bedazzled when I saw it. I'll have to show it in a post soon. I've been looking for a hatpin holder... seems they are not that plentiful these days around here. the weight of the stoned head has to have something that wont tip over.
If I were to guess which hatpin out of your collection wasn't "real" I would guess the white daisy type flower. I'm probably way off...
Thanks for such fun looking at your collection!!!

Big hugs, sherry

I'm so sick of winter & snow!

Unknown said...

You have a fine collection of hat pins Marietta and thanks for sharing some more detailed info on them with us, always love to know more! I had a closer look at the pins and my first guess was that the big shiny bling hat pin isn't that old, it's somehow too flashy for those days, too bright and not plain elegant enough, but I may be totally wrong on that one :-) No doubt you'll give the right answer!

butterfly said...

Verry nice blog. I like your fotos verry much and also your favorite song: Here I am Lord.greetings from Holland, Marja

Sandi said...

Okay I am guessing the big bling one or the cameo hatpin. I just couldn't pick between the two, but I am probably way off too. :) Lovely collection!!