Help on my new bought pendant~

[nonoh73980]

Dear all,

I bought this pendant in US, but I kind of believe it is an English piece depending on the style. (please don't hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong).
There is a mark on it but I can't recognize it.
Could you please help?

I'll super appreciate the kindly help!!
Naomi

[dognose]

Hi Naomi,

Welcome to the Forum.

You are right to think this is English, it's made by Thomas Hopwood of Birmingham.

See: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=14729&p=84203&hilit=hopwood#p84203

Trev.

[AG2012]

Hi,
As there is no karat fineness and hallmarks for gold, it is obviously rolled gold or gold filled jewelry.
Not gold - plated, but much thicker layer of gold heat-fused to base metal and unlike extremely thin gold-plating, it exceeds 5% of gold per total weight.
Besides, pearls and amethysts are well set;in the link given by Trev it seems they produced imitation jewelry, but amethysts are not synthetic for two reasons. Firstly, amethyst is abundant and relatively inexpensive, so there would seem to be no incentive to synthesize it, and secondly, commercially available synthetic amethyst did not exist before about 1970.
Regards

[nonoh73980]

Thank you so much!!! Learned a lot :DDDD

[legrandmogol]

I'm kinda late to the party here but it definitely could be solid gold. The hallmarking laws of England at the time did not make it mandatory to hallmark jewelry except for certain types of rings. A lot of older English jewelry is solid gold and not hallmarked at all.

[AG2012]

This pendant cannot be older than Victorian.
When the 18 carat standard was introduced in 1798 it was marked with a crown and the number 18. The lion passant was the fineness mark used on 22 carat gold from 1544 until 1844. After 1844 both standards were marked with a crown and either the number 22 or 18. When the lower standards of 15, 12 and 9 carats were introduced in 1854 their fineness marks were the carat and its decimal equivalent, i.e. 15/.625, 12/.5 and 9/.375. When the 15 and 12 carat standards were replaced in 1932 by the 14 carat standard, that fineness was marked with 14/.585.

Regards

[legrandmogol]

right, but none of those marks were REQUIRED on jewelry until 1973. Due to the softness of the gold and the delicate nature of the jewelry's construction, hallmarks on jewelry were optional in England. It wasn't until the U.K. Hallmarking Act of 1973 that almost all articles of precious metal manufacture were required to be hallmarked. I think the only jewelry article that was required to be marked was Posey rings or something of that nature and then, only as long as it didn't have a stone set into it.