We were recently offered a collection of mainly Victorian jewellery consisting of around 100 pieces.  This was too good an opportunity to miss, so we jumped at the chance and have found ourselves with enough work to keep us going until next year!

The owner was a lady called Alice who particularly loved brooches.  From what we can piece together she was from the Manchester area and amassed most of her collection in the 1960s and 70s.  Some of the items were in little boxes with prices such as £15 on them, so she kept some notes of how much she paid.  

At first glance it seemed to be a fairly typical, but larger than normal, collection of an old lady’s jewellery, but the more we are looking at each piece, the more we see that the pieces she bought are simply not available these days, or tucked away in private collections.

Her love of brooches seems boundless and they make up 75% of the collection and many are of beautiful quality and craftsmanship which would have been expensive to purchase.  They were all individually wrapped up in tissue paper and cotton wool and had a musty smell from being in a safe for many years.

We have been filming many of the pieces for our Instagram TV channel, PLAZATV where I can be seen talking about them.  One of the more unusual pieces, which was the first to se sell,