Weiss Jewelry

Weiss Jewelry

Weiss Jewelry

Weiss designed some of the most beautiful, if underrated, rhinestone jewelry of the post-World War II period, skilfully presenting its Austrian crystal rhinestones of exceptional clarity and colour in handcrafted designs.

Albert Weiss learned to design and make costume jewelry at Coro, the largest costume jewelry manufactory in the United States, before going on to found the Weiss Company in New York City in 1942.




 The company flourished in the 1950s and 1960s, becoming recognized for its well-crafted, rhinestone-encrusted costume jewelry. The company was so successful that it commissioned Hollycraft to produce some of its work, in order to meet demand.

Weiss Jewelry

Weiss was noted for its use of components of exceptional quality, especially its Austrian crystal rhinestones that were usually prong-set to maximize their clarity and color.




The rhinestones were set in fairly traditional forms, including floral, fruit, foliate, and figural jewelry pieces, as well as a range of Art-Deco-style geometric designs.

Weiss Jewelry

The figural pieces from the 1950s, particularly forms such as butterflies, insects, and single flower pins studded with rhinestones, are keenly collected.



 Settings were of high-quality gold- and silver-plated metals, and alloys were also used, sometimes enameled, while japanning became a widely employed design feature in the 1960s.



 Another desirable form from the 1950s was the Christmas tree pin, heavily studded in Weiss's characteristic rhinestones. Many of Weiss's Christmas tree designs were emulated by other costume jewelers.

Weiss Jewelry

The fashionable "aurora borealis" rhinestone was favored by Weiss and his team in the mid-1950s. 

"All the colors of a rainbow, captured in a new imported Austrian stone," ran the advertisement for Weiss's "aurora borealis" jewelry.

Weiss Jewelry

Weiss's presentation was innovative— stones were sometimes inverted to reveal the more intensely iridescent effect of the underside. In the mid-1950s, Weiss alsodeveloped a simulation of German smoky quartz, called "black diamonds."

Weiss Jewelry

 Set in typical Weiss designs, the "black diamonds" were highly realistic and very beautiful, and are keenly collected today. The copy for an advertisement in Vogue magazine in 1959 read: "Especially created for the smart new smoky-toned fashions.


 Distinctive gray Austrian rhinestones accented with tiny shimmering crystals designed by the pacc-settcr of fine jewelry, Albert Weiss."

Weiss Jewelry

When Albert Weiss retired in the 1960s, his son Michael took over the running of the company. As demand for costume jewelry declined in the late 1960s, the company failed. It ceased operations in 1971.

Weiss Jewelry

The Weiss Company's designs are comparable to those of Eisenberg and Bogoff but have been under-rated and under-priced by collectors, although prices are rising in today's market.

Weiss Jewelry

Buyers should beware, however, as there are many Weiss fakes on the marke Collectors should be suspicious of poor color and clarity or stones that have been glued instead of prong-set. Weiss also manufactured unmarked pieces to sell wholesale through department stores.




 An experienced and reputable dealer can help collectors distinguish unsigned Weiss from fake.

Weiss Jewelry

From 1943, pieces were marked "Weiss" in script or block capitals, or "Albert Weiss" or "AW Co.," where the "W" is larger and in the shape of a crown. Tags may also bear this mark.

Hattie Carnegie

Hattie  Carnegie

Hattie  Carnegie

Legend has it that as the Kanengeiser family set sail from Europe for the promised land of America, their young daughter asked the name of the richest man in the country.


Adopting industrialist Andrew Carnegie's name for herself, Hattie Carnegie went on to build a fashion empire and achieve spectacular commercial success.

Hattie  Carnegie

Born Henrietta Kanengeiser in Vienna, Austria, in 1886, Hattie Carnegie emigrated to the United States with her family at the turn of the century. Initially, she worked as a milliner's assistant at Macy's department store in New York City, but in 1913, she opened the first of a series of dress and millinery shops with Rose Booth, who made the dresses while Carnegie designed the hats.


Hattie  Carnegie

Hattie  Carnegie

The success of this enterprise led to her establishing Hattie Carnegie Inc. in 1918, and she started making jewelry to accessorize the company's outfits.

Carnegie was an innovative designer, eschewing the trend for copying fine jewelry in favor of creating her own—very expensive— designs. Early ideas were based on clips and pins in vermeil silver or base metal.


 She produced big, retro, abstract designs and enamel figurals in the form of animals and human faces, all commanding high prices today.

Hattie  Carnegie

I lattie Carnegie Originals, her ready-to-wear line, was launched in 1928. By the 1930s, she was established as a top name in the fashion world.



 She was known for her palazzo pajamas and simple black dresses, which she accessorized with feminine designs, producing small quantities of jewels that are rare today. Joan Crawford was a big

fan, buying many of her pieccs, as were other Hollywood goddesses, including Tallulah Bankhead, Joan Fontaine, and Norma Shearer.

Hattie  Carnegie

She commisioned other designers, such as Norman Norell, Pauline Trigere, and Claire McCardel, to create her pieces.



 They incorporated many forms: floral and fruit motifs were used, alongside Oriental figures and stylized animal pins.

Hattie  Carnegie

 But Carnegie is perhaps best known for "trembling" necklaces: the designs featured butterflies and flowers on springs that vibrated as the w earer moved. Materials included poured glass, faux pearls, plastic stones and beads, and rhinestones, with enameled, gold- or silver-plated bodies. The look was "frankly fake" and boldly chic.




Hattie  Carnegie

Mass production of Carnegie jewelry by the late 1950s had mixed results, and some rather unexciting gilt flower pins and abstract paste- designs were made.



 However, there were some flashes of brilliance: in the 1900s, the "Antelope" pin, inspired by primitive art, used bright plastic to emulate jade, coral, turquoise, and lapis, oft'st t with shimmering pastes.

Hattie  Carnegie

 The dramatic resign was stylish and bol j. Not as va uable but still collected are roe elephants, fish, butter'ii.:s, and birds made in this style. Other desirable pieces include c r< u> horses, clowns, and butterfly pins, as well as chandelier earrings

In 1956, following Carnegie's death, the company was sold to Larry Joseph, then in 1976 it was bought by the Chromology \i orican Corp. Marks include "HC" or "HAC" in a diamond ship.., or "Carnegie" or "Hattie Carnegie."

Hobe Jewelry

Hobe   Jewelry


With "Jewels of Legendary Splendor" as its slogan, William Hobe's company

Hobe   Jewelry

made jewelry for film and theater, becoming a favorite of legendary director and producer Cecil B. DeMille.

Hobe was founded in Paris in the mid-19th century. Jacques Hobc was a master goldsmith and jeweler at the French court. However, with the advent of industrialization and mass production, Hobe began to produce costume jewelry with the same meticulous care he had previously devoted to making precious pieces.

Hobe   Jewelry

In the mid-1920s, Hobe's grandson William emigrated to New York City. He began selling theatrical costumes and soon received a commission to make costumes and jewelry for the Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway, initiating the Hobe Jewelry company's long association with the stage.

In 1927. William Hobe set up Hobe Cie in the United States, continuing the family firm's costume jewelry production. I lis antique- style jewelry became en vogue after Gone with the Wind\ with its huge, romantic ballgowns, arriv ed on the silver screen in 1939.

Hobe   Jewelry

Building on his ancestral interest in working with semi-precious and precious stones, William Hobe researched historical European jewelry. Consequently, from the mid-1920s until the 1950s, his designs and use of semi-precious materials set him apart from his contemporaries. Chrysoprase, lapis, garnet, amethyst, jade, and agate were combined with pearls and carved ivory panels, making his pieces, then as now, more expensive than typical costume jewelry.




 Vermeil silver pieces with hand-worked filigree created a romantic

Hobe   Jewelry

feel popular in the 1930s and 1940s. Superb early pieces include carved cinnabar and ivory Oriental work and portrait miniatures, as well as highly prized reproductions of 16th- and 17th-century European precious jewelry.

Hobe is best known for floral pins designed as large bouquets, using a variety of semi-precious stones and quality pastes, and silver plate, vermeil, or platinum settings. His bouquet pins were popular in the 1930s and 1940s, selling in top-end stores, and arc highly collectible today.

By the 1950s, Hobe Jewelry rivaled Joseff of Hollywood as the jewelry supplier to the stars, including Bctte Davis and Ava Gardner. His reputation with the public was consolidated by extravagant advertising campaigns using Hollywood's most beautiful actresses and top models.

Hobe   Jewelry

Hobe succumbed to the more contemporary mood for glamor, and began using paste and base metals in glitzy designs in the vein of Kramer and Weiss. However, the designs were innovative and the pieces well made, so there is still high demand for this later work among collectors today, despite the cheaper materials. Additionally,




 I lobe maintained the quality of its craftsmanship and output by using only designs created by family members and designer Lou Vici, who worked for the company for 40 years from the 1930s onward.

The Hobe Jewelry company remained in the family until the late 1990s, when it was sold. Today, it still produces signed pieces rev isiting earlier designs.

Designer Costume Jewelry

Designer Costume Jewelry

Designer Costume Jewelry

In  the 1960s, Vendome became the byword for elegance and style in . Created by one of America's leading Designer Costume jewelry manufacturers, Coro, the brand brought the essence of Parisian chic to a rich and aspirational US market.

Designer Costume Jewelry

Coro first used the Vendome mark on its charm bracelets, faux pearls necklaces, and other premium range jewelry items in 1944. By 1953, a complete Vendome line was established which w as designed to replace Corocraft, Coro's most expensive line.








 At this time, Vendome began to operate as a separate, semi-independent subsidiary company. Named for place Vendome, a Parisian square known for its fashion houses, the line was marketed at the wealthy American elite seeking to emulate the panache of post-war Paris.

Designer Costume Jewelry

In keeping with its premium image, Vendomc used the best- quality rhinestones and highly faceted crystal beads, imported from Austria and Czechoslovakia. Lucite came in colorless and colorcd forms.






Designer Costume Jewelry, faux pearls and enameling were of the finest quality. These components were hand-soldered to carefully wrought bases of silver- or gold-plated metals or gold-toned metal. Designs often had a three- dimensional quality where stones and settings overlapped, creating an expensive, well-crafted finish.

Until the 1960s, Vendome presented pieces in standard floral or occasionally in geometric forms, and sales were low. However, the appointment of I lelcn Marion as chief designer changed the company's fortunes and her innovative designs and artistic integrity revitalized sales.

Designer Costume Jewelry

 Notable work by Marion includes elaborate reintcrpretations of ethnic jewelry and delicate pieces with moveable parts. Most famously, she created a series of six collage-style pins based on the work of Cubist artist Georges Braque, consisting of a marine abstract, a Picasso-style face, the dove of peace, flying birds, an owl, and a pair of swimming fish.

Designer Costume Jewelry

Designer Costume Jewelry

The Richton International Corporation bought both Coro and Vendome in 1957. 1'he company closed in 1979. Pieces are marked "Vendome" and feature a copyright sign, although the company also used a swing tag with the "V" and fleur-de-lis design.

EISENBERG JEWELRY

Eisenberg  Jewelry

EISENBERG    JEWELRY

Eisenberg was renowned as one of the finest costume jewelry companies of the 1930s and 1940s, as a result of its excellent workmanship and the stunning use of Swarovski crystals.

Eisenberg Original was an American clothing company, established in 1914 in Illinois by Jonas Eisenberg, an emigre from Austria. In the 1920s, the company began to accessorize its outfits with its own pin designs, pinning or sewing the pieces onto garments, which w ere sold only through the finest stores in the I'nited States.

EISENBERG    JEWELRY

The paste jewelry was so admired that when customers found out they could not buy it separately, they began to steal it. By 1930, Eisenberg began producing pins as a separate line, and soon the range was expanded to include necklaces, bracelets, and earrings.

Early  Originals EISENBERG JEWELRY   are large, free-flowing designs with asymmetrical bows and sw irls, popularized at the time by Hollywood.



 In the 1940s, base metals were restricted for war use, so from 1943 to 1948 Eisenberg used sterling silver, and pieces became lighter and more detailed. Wartime rumors claimed that diamonds were being smuggled into America disguised as rhinestones in Eisenberg jew elry, but this has never been verified.

EISENBERG    JEWELRY

From 1940 to 1972, Ruth M. Kamke was head designer. She had started designing at Fallon & Kappel, who manufactured exclusively for Eisenberg. After her appointment she created almost all the pieces marked "Eisenberg Originals" and the "Eisenberg Ice" range.

The fashion in the 1950s, defined by Dior's "New Look," was for femininity. Emulating Kramer and Weiss, Eisenberg used richly colored rhinestones in dainty necklace and earring demi-parures,

which replaced its large pins and clips. In "Eisenberg Ice" pieces, Swarovski rhinestones were now highly
faceted.

EISENBERG    JEWELRY

Eisenberg Jewelry is popular with collectors because of its craftsmanship and its bold, clean, and typically large designs featuring Swarovski rhinestones, the high lead content of which give exceptional sparkle. Simulated glass stones and faux pearls are also employed to great effect.



 The pieces use sterling silver, white base metal, or silver- and gold-plated metal. Typical forms include Art Deco-inspired, medallion-like pins or clips of aqua, ruby, and clear crystals, and organic, abstract pieces. Also popular are the pins featuring kings and queens, and those in the form of mermaids, ballerinas, and animals. Some represent children's characters or stories such as Puss in Boots. Early 1940s figures are avidly collected.

EISENBERG    JEWELRY

Also eye-catching are the citrine-set sterling silver pieces, branded "Topaz Quartz" by the company. In the 1970s, it also made simple, enameled floral pieces, and the more expensive "Artists" series, featuring hand-painted enamel on gold. Most rare of all is the 1994 Christmas tree pin featuring navette-cut "aurora borealis" rhinestones in two colorways—only 80 of each colorway were made.

EISENBERG    JEWELRY

From 1930 to 1945, pieces were marked "Eisenberg Original." From the mid-1940s onward, they bear the mark "Eisenberg Ice." Sterling silver pieces w ere marked "Eisenberg Sterling" from 1943 to 1948. From 1952 to 1970, many pieces were unmarked. From 1970 to the present, "Eisenberg Ice" is used. An initial or number on the back of "Eisenberg Originals" identifies which designer set the stones. The company is still in production today.