125-Year-Old Freshwater Pearls Bar Pin

We’ve been cleaning out the historical archives of Cross Jewelers in the last couple of months and found old stone papers filled with wing pearls and glass bottles filled with baroque freshwater pearls. Wing pearls look like bird’s wings and feathers. They are white striated and long. The glass bottles held baroque pearls found in freshwater oyster. These freshwater pearls are white, pearly white with whimsical shapes. There were hundreds of them, most were small. Their purpose were as replacement stones for pieces of jewelry made in the 1800s.

When my great-grandfather opened his jewelry shop in 1908 in Portland, Maine, these wild freshwater pearls were important for doing repairs on old pieces of jewelry made 50 to 75 years before.

This pin is 2 ½ inches long and has a heavy yellow gold wire woven across a gently arched surface. In five out of the seven openings, there is a baroque freshwater pearl strung on a lighter gold wire threaded through. The pin is beautiful. The clasp suggests 1830-1890. The pin stem as was a common tradition back in the 1800s is a stiffer yellow and white metal ideal for strength in pin stems.