How to Identify an Antique Marks & Spencer Brooch
Marks and Spencer, 125 years old, is one of the leading retailers in the UK with about 21 million visitors to its stores each week. It sells a variety of men, women and children fashion, home and furniture, technology, food, wine and various other items from affordable to expensively priced. On its website, brooches will not appear in the online catalogue. To find the antique brooches one must resort to eBay and other shopping sites. It's important to brush up on general antique brooch knowledge and peruse the older Marks and Spencer brooches on sale through the Internet. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
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Find an antique Marks and Spencer Brooch. Either on eBay, or on an antique jewelry online seller. Check local antique retailers that have a specialty in jewelry if you live in the United Kingdom.
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The styles of the time from the late 1800 to the mid 1900s utilized bow shapes, flowers, animals and fans. Look for classic shapes in a Marks and Spencer brooch because the retailer is known for keeping up with the styles of the time with a simple yet elegant approach. It is not known for having an ostentatious look.
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Look for a brass clasp in the Marks and Spencer Brooch. See if the brooch has a gold filling, but it will always be made out of the same materials of regular costume jewelry.
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Look at the crystals or pearls of a Marks and Spencer brooch, because it should not be real. The crystals will be made of glass and the pearls will not be fresh water or salt water, but most likely a plastic.
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Identify how new the Marks and Spencer brooch is to ensure it's an antique and not from the recent collection. Check in with the company and see if a jewelry catalogue can be emailed to you. Then peruse the brooch collection and familiarize yourself with what the newer styles look like so as not to confuse them with an actual antique.
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Tips & Warnings
Marks and Spencer no longer sells brooches online and although it's a large retailer it never had a quintessential brooch or symbol, (unlike Chanel, for instance), to identify with because the Marks and Spencer style is an amalgamation of different classic looks. It may prove very difficult to find an antique Marks and Spencer brooch because it is not an actual jewelry retailer, which means its older pins and brooches were affordable because they were not made of gold, silver or platinum. This also could mean that many, over the years since the manufacturing date, have been destroyed or thrown away.
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