Two pictures. Your choice.

By midcentury, even the locket had changed clothes. Gone were the flowers, flourishes and romantic ornament of earlier generations. This one arrived dressed for a new world: graphic, geometric, textured in alternating rhythms of gold. But open it, and the old purpose remains. Two small photographs, carried close.

Made in France and marked Plaqué Or Laminé, Cadence carries a particularly French bit of jewelry history. Or laminé was a quality gold-layer construction, made by mechanically bonding a substantial layer of gold to a base metal rather than depositing the very thin surface layer associated with ordinary electroplating. The result was jewelry made to wear and endure more like gold, which helps explain why the finish on this little locket has survived so beautifully.

Open it and the geometry continues inside, framing two oval spaces for photographs. Both metallic paper photo inserts remain in place.

Details

• Era: Midcentury, stylistically dated c. 1940s–50s
• Origin: France
• Material: Plaqué Or Laminé (French laminated gold)
• Mark: Plaqué Or Laminé
• Measurements: Approx. 7/8 × 3/4 inch
• Interior: Two oval photo compartments with metallic paper inserts
• Condition: Good vintage condition with light surface wear consistent with age and a small shallow ding to the center polished panel, as shown. Gold-laminated finish remains very well preserved. Locket opens and closes securely and retains both metallic paper photo inserts.
• Styling Notes: Small enough to layer. Interesting enough not to disappear.

Please Note: Jewelry box, chains, styling props, and any additional items shown in photos are for display purposes only unless specifically listed as included.

Your piece will arrive carefully packaged in RetroStarr presentation wrapping, ready for gifting, collecting, or immediate wear.

Curated by Dana Sednek, GIA trained jewelry professional and founder of RetroStarr, where each jewel is hand selected for its past lives and future attitude.

Look through it.

A single sweep of silver curves around an open center, letting air become part of the composition. In the hands of Mexican modernist silversmith Ysidro García Piña, jewelry became an exercise in reduction: line, movement, surface, space.

Made in García Piña's Maricela workshop in Taxco, this brooch turns that idea into something remarkably simple. A textured sterling border traces the curve while the broad interior is left almost entirely open. The result changes depending on what sits behind it: fabric, skin, shadow, nothing at all.

Details

• Era: Midcentury Modern, c. 1950s–60s
• Maker: Ysidro García Piña, Maricela
• Origin: Taxco, Mexico
• Metal: Sterling silver
• Hallmarks: Maricela, Tasco, Hecho En Mexico, Sterling, Eagle 3
• Design: Sculptural open-form / negative-space brooch
• Condition: Very good vintage condition with light surface wear consistent with age and use. Patina has been intentionally preserved to retain the definition and depth of the original surface work. Pin mechanism functions as intended. 
• Styling Notes: Pin it somewhere the empty space gets to participate.

Please Note: Jewelry box, chains, styling props, and any additional items shown in photos are for display purposes only unless specifically listed as included.

Your piece will arrive carefully packaged in RetroStarr presentation wrapping, ready for gifting, collecting, or immediate wear.

Curated by Dana Sednek, GIA trained jewelry professional and founder of RetroStarr, where each jewel is hand selected for its past lives and future attitude.

Black became modern.

She fastened black onyx at her throat and stepped into a world that was changing around her. Bare arms, shorter hemlines, a drink out, an evening that belonged increasingly to women on their own terms. Against the skin, black and silver felt sharp and new. Jewelry had changed along with everything else.

Look closely and you can see how completely this necklace belonged to that moment. The polished onyx is suspended within remarkably fine sterling filigree, with a tiny colorless glass accent catching the light at its center. Even the journey up to the chain was considered, with an architectural pierced connector continuing the design before meeting the delicate 16-inch chain. 

Details

• Era: Art Deco, c. 1920s–30s
• Metal: Sterling silver
• Hallmarks: AT, Sterling
• Maker: AT, currently unidentified
• Stone: Black onyx with colorless glass accent
• Necklace Length: 16 inches
• Pendant: Approx. 1 1/4 × 3/4 inches
• Condition: Very good antique condition with surface wear consistent with age and use. Clasp functions as intended.
• Styling Notes: Bare skin. Black dress. Somewhere worth going.

Please Note: Jewelry box, chains, styling props, and any additional items shown in photos are for display purposes only unless specifically listed as included.

Your piece will arrive carefully packaged in RetroStarr presentation wrapping, ready for gifting, collecting, or immediate wear.

Curated by Dana Sednek, GIA trained jewelry professional and founder of RetroStarr, where each jewel is hand selected for its past lives and future attitude.

Subtlety had the night off.

Cocktail rings have always understood the assignment: take up space, catch the light, start a conversation. Big Mood carries on that tradition with absolutely no interest in dialing things down.

Deep purple glass flashes from plum to violet to nearly black depending on the light, giving this oversized vintage ring all the drama its name promises. Set simply in sterling silver, it lands somewhere between glamorous and gloriously over-the-top.

Details

• Era: Vintage / Estate
• Metal: Sterling silver
• Hallmarks: Sterling
• Stone: Faceted purple glass
• Cut: Emerald cut
• Ring Size: 5.75
• Weight: 13.42 grams
• Condition: Very good vintage condition with surface wear consistent with age and use.
• Styling Notes: Wear it like it's real. Ideally, on your pointer finger. 

Please Note: Jewelry box, chains, styling props, and any additional items shown in photos are for display purposes only unless specifically listed as included.

Your piece will arrive carefully packaged in RetroStarr presentation wrapping, ready for gifting, collecting, or immediate wear.

Curated by Dana Sednek, GIA trained jewelry professional and founder of RetroStarr, where each jewel is hand selected for its past lives and future attitude.

The building moved to your wrist.

During the years between Art Deco and Mid-Century Modernism, design began shedding ornament and letting structure do the talking. Setback belongs to that fascinating in-between world. Its overlapping brass planes rise and retreat like the stepped profiles of interwar architecture, turning the bracelet into something closer to a miniature construction than conventional jewelry.

The single olive-green Bakelite element makes the whole thing stranger and better. Rather than appearing as applied decoration, it becomes part of the structure itself, joining brass and one of the defining new materials of the machine age in a piece that feels engineered rather than embellished. The maker is unknown. The point of view is not.

Details

• Era: Retro Moderne, c. late 1930s–1940s, stylistically dated
• Material: Brass and tested Bakelite
• Color: Olive green Bakelite
• Maker: Unknown
• Hallmarks: None observed
• Size: Adjustable
• Closure: Chain-and-hook closure with hollow brass ball terminal
• Style: Retro Moderne / Machine Age / architectural jewelry
• Condition: Very good vintage condition with surface wear, oxidation, and developed patina to the brass consistent with age and use. The Bakelite element remains glossy and well preserved. Hardware appears intact and functional.
• Styling Notes: Setback has already done the accessorizing for you. Give it a bare wrist, a rolled cuff, or a sharply tailored sleeve and let the architecture stand alone.

Please Note: Jewelry box, chains, styling props, and any additional items shown in photos are for styling & display purposes only, unless specifically listed as included.

Your piece will arrive carefully packaged in RetroStarr presentation wrapping, ready for gifting, collecting, or immediate wear.

Curated by Dana Sednek, GIA trained jewelry professional and founder of RetroStarr, where each jewel is hand selected for its past lives and future attitude.

Her name was Ruby. We know what she belonged to.

In 1919, this remarkable gold pin belonged to Ruby E. Davis of Stella Rebekah Lodge No. 22. More than a century later, her name, her lodge, and the year are still engraved across the back. We may not know the rest of Ruby's story, but the front tells us something about the community she chose to be part of.

The Rebekahs grew from the Independent Order of Odd Fellows in the nineteenth century, with ideals centered around friendship, love, truth, charity, and mutual aid. Their jewelry carried those ideas in symbols. Ruby's pin gathers them together in miniature: a beehive representing cooperative industry, the dove of peace, and other Rebekah imagery worked into the colorful enameled star. A synthetic ruby glows beneath the articulated dove, all rendered in 14K yellow gold.

This isn't simply a piece of fraternal jewelry. It's a tiny surviving record of identity and belonging. Someone put Ruby's name on it in 1919. More than a hundred years later, we're still saying it.

Details

• Date: 1919
• Organization: Rebekah Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows
• Lodge: Stella Rebekah Lodge No. 22
• Original Owner: Ruby E. Davis, as engraved
• Metal: 14K yellow gold
• Stone: Synthetic ruby
• Enamel: Multicolor enamel
• Design: Articulated dove above a five-pointed symbolic Rebekah star
• Engraving: Ruby E. Davis / Stella Reb / Lodge 22 / 1919, with additional engraving
• Measurements: Approximately 1 1/2 × 1 inch
• Condition: Very good antique condition with surface wear and areas of enamel loss consistent with more than a century of age. Pin mechanism functions as intended.

Please Note: Jewelry box, chains, styling props, and any additional items shown in photos are for display purposes only unless specifically listed as included.

Your piece will arrive carefully packaged in RetroStarr presentation wrapping, ready for gifting, collecting, or immediate wear.

Curated by Dana Sednek, GIA trained jewelry professional and founder of RetroStarr, where each jewel is hand selected for its past lives and future attitude.

The future used to look like this.

There was a moment in the midcentury when everything seemed headed somewhere: satellites, jet travel, new buildings, new materials, new shapes. Even a brooch could look like it was moving.

Trajectory comes straight out of that visual language. Tru-Kay built the piece from sterling silver, then covered its sweeping surface with tiny engraved lines that catch the light as the form changes direction. A polished silver element seems to travel straight through the middle. It is small, strange, optimistic, and unmistakably of its moment.

Signed TK Sterling for Tru-Kay, an American jewelry manufacturer active during the midcentury period.

Details

• Era: Midcentury, approximately 1950s–1960s
• Maker: Tru-Kay
• Country: United States
• Metal: Sterling silver
• Hallmarks: TK, Sterling
• Measurements: Approximately 2 1/4 × 1 1/4 inches
• Weight: 4.93 grams
• Condition: Excellent vintage condition with minimal surface wear consistent with age. Pin mechanism functions as intended. 

Please Note: Jewelry box, chains, styling props, and any additional items shown in photos are for display purposes only unless specifically listed as included.

Your piece will arrive carefully packaged in RetroStarr presentation wrapping, ready for gifting, collecting, or immediate wear.

Curated by Dana Sednek, GIA trained jewelry professional and founder of RetroStarr, where each jewel is hand selected for its past lives and future attitude.

The geometry is older than it looks.

With its sharp radiating points and open geometric construction, Old Salem could easily be mistaken for a particularly exuberant piece of 1980s futurism. Its form, however, reaches much further back.

Hand & Hammer Silversmiths translated the traditional Moravian star into this remarkably graphic piece of jewelry, using pierced sterling silver and gold vermeil to create a dimensional pattern of points, light, and negative space. The company's Moravian Star design, #595, dates to 1984, and Hand & Hammer's own records connect its Moravian Star work to Old Salem, the historic Moravian community in North Carolina. The result is an object that manages to look historic, architectural, and slightly Space Age all at once.

Details

• Era: Vintage; design introduced 1984
• Maker: Hand & Hammer Silversmiths
• Country: United States
• Metal: Sterling silver with gold vermeil
• Hallmarks: H&H, Sterling
• Design: Moravian Star #595
• Measurements: Approximately 1 1/4 inches diameter
• Weight: 2.46 grams
• Condition: Excellent vintage condition with minimal surface wear consistent with age. Vermeil remains bright and well preserved. Please see photographs for details.
• Styling Notes: All those points do the work. Old Salem is small enough to wear easily, but graphic enough to hold its own without anything else competing for attention.

Please Note: Jewelry box, chains, styling props, and any additional items shown in photos are for display purposes only unless specifically listed as included.

Your piece will arrive carefully packaged in RetroStarr presentation wrapping, ready for gifting, collecting, or immediate wear.

Curated by Dana Sednek, GIA trained jewelry professional and founder of RetroStarr, where each jewel is hand selected for its past lives and future attitude.

Somewhere between jewelry and molecular structure.

A cluster of polished sterling silver orbs rises from the hand in Molecule, turning one repeated form into something unexpectedly sculptural. There are no stones, no applied ornament, and very little interest in behaving like a conventional ring. Shape, repetition, reflection, and negative space do all the work.

The ring is signed MR for Mexican silversmith Melesio Rodríguez, whose career included work with Rancho Alegre, Sigi, and, for many years, Margot de Taxco. Its compact constellation of silver spheres feels particularly at home in the experimental language of midcentury Mexican jewelry, where traditional silversmithing increasingly met abstraction and modernist design.

Details

• Era: Midcentury

• Maker: Melesio Rodríguez

• Country: Mexico

• Metal: Sterling silver

• Hallmarks: MR, STERLING, MEXICO, Eagle 3

• Ring Size: Approximately 7; adjustable open double-band construction

• Design: Clustered sterling silver orbs

• Condition: Very good vintage condition with light surface wear and patina consistent with age and use. Adjustable band remains functional.

Styling Notes: Molecule has the scale of an everyday ring and the personality of something much larger. Wear it alone and let the cluster do its strange little atomic thing.

Please Note: Jewelry box, chains, styling props, and any additional items shown in photos are for display purposes only unless specifically listed as included.

Your piece will arrive carefully packaged in RetroStarr presentation wrapping, ready for gifting, collecting, or immediate wear.

Curated by Dana Sednek, GIA trained jewelry professional and founder of RetroStarr, where each jewel is hand selected for its past lives and future attitude.

Friendship. Love. Truth. [and Mortality].

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows managed to fit quite a lot of existential philosophy into a very small piece of jewelry. 

At its center are the three linked letters FLT — Friendship, Love and Truth — the central principles of Odd Fellowship. The skull and crossbones isn't simply decorative Victorian-era morbidity. Within Odd Fellows symbolism, it served as a memento mori: a reminder of mortality and the temporary nature of earthly life. Friendship, love, truth...and the useful reminder that none of us gets out alive.

Dating to approximately 1900–1920, the fob is richly detailed on both sides, with contrasting enamel surrounding the FLT emblem and an articulated skull-and-crossbones element that moves on its hinge. Originally intended as a watch fob, it translates remarkably well as a pendant today.

Details

• Era: Antique, c. 1900–1920

• Organization: Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF)

• Metal: Gold filled

• Materials: Enamel, red glass accents

• Design: Double-sided FLT emblem with articulated skull and crossbones

• Hallmarks: None

• Measurements: Approximately 1¾ × ⅞ inches

• Condition: Very good antique condition with surface wear and patina consistent with age and use. Enamel shows age-related wear visible in photographs. Articulated skull-and-crossbones element remains functional and moves freely on its hinge.

Styling Notes: Originally made as a watch fob, Until Death is ready for its second act as a pendant. Add it to a favorite chain or charm collection and enjoy explaining why your tiny ruby-eyed skull is really about friendship.

Please Note: Jewelry box, chains, styling props, and any additional items shown in photos are for display purposes only unless specifically listed as included.

Your piece will arrive carefully packaged in RetroStarr presentation wrapping, ready for gifting, collecting, or immediate wear.

Curated by Dana Sednek, GIA trained jewelry professional and founder of RetroStarr, where each jewel is hand selected for its past lives and future attitude.

The view is the point.

The most successful settings often ask the least attention for themselves. Rather than surrounding the stone with ornament, Lumen gives a light lemon citrine room to breathe, lifting it above the hand until transparency, proportion, and light become the experience. Your eye never quite finds a reason to look away.

Crafted in sterling silver during the 1970s, Lumen reflects a period when oversized colored gemstones became increasingly popular in everyday jewelry. Rather than relying on elaborate metalwork to amplify its presence, this ring allows a generously proportioned emerald-cut light lemon citrine to carry the composition almost entirely on its own. The stone provides the drama. The setting simply knows when to stop.

Details

• Era: Vintage, c. 1970s
• Metal: Sterling Silver
• Gemstone: Emerald-cut light lemon citrine
• Approximate Gemstone Dimensions: 25.40 × 20.49 × 8.16 mm
• Estimated Gemstone Weight: Approximately 40.3 carats
• Hallmarks: Sterling, with an unreadable maker's mark 
• Ring Size: 7¾
• Weight: 5.97 grams
• Style: Cocktail ring / statement ring
• Condition: Very good vintage condition with light surface wear to the sterling consistent with age and wear. The citrine is eye clean with a few minute conchoidal chips along the girdle, visible only under a loupe. Stone secure. Hallmark present but unreadable.

• Styling Notes: Lumen wears more like a piece of architecture than ornament. Pair it with clean tailoring, natural linen, or an all-black palette and let the generous emerald-cut citrine become the focal point. Its light lemon tone offers presence without heaviness, making it surprisingly versatile for a statement ring.

Please Note: Jewelry box, chains, styling props, and any additional items shown in photos are for display purposes only unless specifically listed as included.

Your piece will arrive carefully packaged in RetroStarr presentation wrapping, ready for gifting, collecting, or immediate wear.

Curated by Dana Sednek, GIA trained jewelry professional and founder of RetroStarr, where each jewel is hand selected for its past lives and future attitude.

This bracelet wasn’t made to become vintage. It was made for Patricia. Engraved “Love to Patricia, From Uncle Francis, Denver, Dec. 1945,” it has carried that message for nearly eighty years. Today, it offers someone new the chance to become part of its continuing story.

Crafted in sterling silver with delicate forget-me-not blossoms framing each engraved panel, this bracelet reflects the enduring popularity of sentimental jewelry in the years immediately following World War II. Rather than commemorating history through grand symbolism, it preserves something more personal: a name, a place, a date, and an expression of affection. Nearly eighty years later, those simple words remain every bit as meaningful as the bracelet itself.

Details

• Era: Mid-Century (Dec. 1945)
• Metal: Sterling Silver
• Hallmarks: Sterling, Forget Me Not
• Weight: 11.96 grams
• Size: 6⅝ inches
• Style: Sweetheart bracelet / Forget-Me-Not bracelet / engraved sentimental bracelet
• Condition: Very good vintage condition with light surface wear consistent with age and use. The engraved inscription remains crisp and highly legible. Original patina has been preserved, highlighting both the floral details and the bracelet’s history.

• Styling Notes: Homecoming layers beautifully with everyday chains and bangles, but it is equally compelling worn alone. The engraved panels invite conversation, making this a bracelet for someone who believes the stories objects carry are every bit as valuable as the materials they’re made from.

Please Note: Jewelry box, chains, styling props, and any additional items shown in photos are for display purposes only unless specifically listed as included.

Your piece will arrive carefully packaged in RetroStarr presentation wrapping, ready for gifting, collecting, or immediate wear.

Curated by Dana Sednek, GIA trained jewelry professional and founder of RetroStarr.