Silver Costume Jewelry

In vintage fine jewelry, precious metals such as platinum, gold, and silver were routinely used as armatures and frames for gemstones like diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. But in vintage costume jewelry, the base material that held the glittering rhinestones and sparkling pieces of paste in place was called white or pot metal, an inexpensive, kitchen-sink alloy of mostly tin and lead.

World War II changed all that, forcing costume-jewelry designers such as Trifari, Coro, and Haskell to anchor their baubles to silver, which was less valuable to the war effort than tin or lead. Unfortunately, it was also more expensive to work with. Prices for Trifari products tripled, in part because the company’s dies, and even its tools, had been melted down for the war. Starting in some cases entirely from scratch, some of its jewelry had to be made using traditional lost-wax-casting techniques, which added to the precious metal’s already high cost...