How did my Jewelry Career Start? I Blame Miriam Haskell

People ask me regularly how I got into the jewelry business.  I blame Miriam Haskell. The first piece of vintage jewelry I ever bought. 

In the early 1990s, I was working in an antique store in Ellicott City, Maryland. My job at the antique store was a little bit of everything. I dusted furniture, swept the floor, answered questions I didn't know how to answer.  

My favorite place to be in the store was the jewelry cases. There were paste brooches, rhinestone earrings, Bakelite bracelets, Victorian mourning pins, sparkling diamond rings and colorful gemstones. 

One day a lady came in selling her mother's box of jewelry.  When I opened it I fell in love with a old dusty darken necklace. 

It was a strange, wonderful thing—gold-tone metal covered with amber bead bees, textured leaves, little glass beads, twisted wire, and pearls.  It was heavy in my hand. Nothing about it was neat. The back was even more mysterious than the front. It looked handmade, almost improvised, as if someone had sat at a workbench and built it from whatever beautiful things were within reach.

I turned it over in my hand. Not knowning anything about buying jewelry I asked her how much she would take. I think she saw I loved it and said $5.00.  So I quickly emptied my wallet and bought my first piece. 

All day long I stared at it.  Who made this? There was no signature that I could see.

I asked local deakers if they knew. Nobody knew and those that made guesses where all over the place.

I wasn't satisfied. So I started reading. I found books about costume jewelry and began haunting the reference shelves at the library. (This younger generation is so lucky to have the internet!!) I learned the names of designers I had never heard of before Eisenberg, Trifari, Coro, Weiss, Schiaparelli, and Miriam Haskell.

I found photographs of her jewelry and suddenly the necklace made sense.

Haskell's pieces had that same wonderful quality of abundance. Nothing seemed too much. Flowers, leaves, pearls, glass beads, rhinestones, filigree, wirework—everything could belong together if it created the right feeling. 

I learned that Haskell jewelry was often unsigned, particularly older pieces. I learned to look at construction, materials, wirework and the way components were assembled. I learned that the back of a piece could tell you as much as the front.

Most importantly, I learned that I didn't know nearly as much as I thought I did.

That turned out to be the beginning of everything.

On my days off, I started going to flea markets, antique shows, estate sales and little church bazaars. I carried a magnifying glass in my purse. I learned to get down on my knees to look through trays of jewelry. 

I bought everything. Or at least I tried to. I bought a necklace because the clasp looked old. It wasn't. I bought a brooch because someone told me it was Haskell. It wasn't. I bought a pair of earrings because they were described as "probably Victorian." They were probably 1980s.

There were times when I came home with a paper bag full of jewelry and the sinking feeling that I had just spent my entire paycheck on mistakes. But every mistake taught me something. I learned to slow down. I learned to look at the backs. I learned to look at the soldering, the wire, the findings, the stones. I learned that good dealers didn't mind questions.

Meanwhile, the little necklace has sat on my dresser for decades.

I has never became completely certain to me that it is Haskell. In fact after 30 years in jewelry I think now its by Robert F. Clark!!!  

That uncertainty bothered me at first but thats what drove a career.