Chronicles
While We Build
Art Deco Bracelet
Some jewels speak through weight, and others through line. This Art Deco bracelet from about 1930 belongs to the latter: refined, openworked, and quietly architectural, with a central old brilliant cut diamond and a total of 55 natural diamonds.
While the selling section of our new website is still being completed, we are temporarily presenting certain jewels in these mails with their prices. The price of this bracelet is €14,000, and if it interests you, you are very welcome to write to us at info@adin.be.
Its elegance is not loud, but assured. Light on the wrist and precise in design, it carries the poised geometry of the Art Deco period with the kind of confidence that still feels entirely at ease today.
Antiqualy yours,
Elkan Wijnberg
on behalf of the entire Adin team
While We Build
Art Deco Bracelet
While the selling section of our new website is still being completed, we are using these interim mails to give a little more attention to individual jewels. Here, that means a remarkable platinum bracelet from about 1950.
By exception, we will mention the price in these mails, even though this is not something we normally do. The price of this bracelet is €24,000, and if it interests you, you are very welcome to write to us at info@adin.be.
Substantial and diamond rich, this platinum bracelet carries the long afterlife of Art Deco into the 1950s, with the kind of assured presence that needs very little help to make itself felt.
Antiqualy yours,
Elkan Wijnberg
on behalf of the entire Adin team
While We Build
White Raven Tiepin
A white raven is rare enough in nature, and rarer still in antique jewellery. Set with almost 140 diamonds and given ruby eyes, this little Victorian bird has the kind of light, improbable presence that makes it easy to understand why it was once chosen, kept, and dated.
While the selling section of our new website is still being completed, we are temporarily using our weekly mail to present certain jewels with their prices, and in this case the price is €11,500. If it interests you, you are very welcome to write to us at info@adin.be.
Antiqualy yours,
Elkan Wijnberg
on behalf of the entire Adin team
While We Build
Turquoise and Diamond Ring
Our new website is still being completed, and for the moment its selling section is not yet ready. In the meantime, we will use some of our coming mails to place the spotlight on individual jewels, and for this one we begin with a striking turquoise and diamond ring from about 1950.
By exception, we will mention the price in these mails, even though this is not something we normally do. The price of this ring is €3,950, and if it interests you, you are very welcome to write to us at info@adin.be.
This ring felt like the right jewel with which to begin our While We Build series: a vivid turquoise from about 1950, framed by diamonds, with the kind of strong mid century presence that can still look both bold and elegant today.
Antiqualy yours,
Elkan Wijnberg
on behalf of the entire Adin team
A Link Through Time
NFTwins
All human things are vulnerable to time, yet we can still try to preserve what is known of their passage through it.
At Adin, we believe the known history of a jewel should not end when it changes hands. In the NFTwin, we have found a thoughtful way not only to carry that history into the future, but also to let the further life of the jewel be recorded over time, so that each new owner may become part of its future history.
Whether NFTs are new to you, already familiar, or met with some scepticism, the following link explains the use we have chosen for them at Adin: not as a novelty, but as a link between jewel, provenance, and time.
You can explore it here: NFTwins
We wish you much reading pleasure.
Antiqualy yours,
Elkan Wijnberg
on behalf of the entire Adin team
A Closer Look
Jewellery Studies
For many years, we have not only handled antique jewellery, but also studied it, questioned it, and tried to understand it more clearly. One part of our renewed website now makes that long process more openly accessible.
With Jewellery Studies, we have begun to gather a series of chapters for those who wish to look more deeply into the world of jewellery. It explores not only materials, hallmarks, authenticity, gemstones, and style, but also the habits of thought, the myths, and the misleading claims that have shaped the way jewellery is too often presented.
One of the first things we would like to share with you there is the introduction to this new series.
You can begin here: Jewellery Studies: Introduction
We wish you much reading pleasure.
Antiqualy yours,
Elkan Wijnberg
on behalf of the entire Adin team
Rooted and Shaped
Years in the Making
For the past four years, we have worked steadily on our new website. Piece by piece, it gradually took the shape we had hoped for. The jewelled bee in the picture felt like the right symbol for that patient work.
Like bees building something of value through countless small, shared efforts, we too have brought many small parts together over time into something we are glad, and even a little proud, to share with you. We hope it may become a lasting source of knowledge for those who come after us.
One of the first things we would like to share with you on the new site is a completely renewed overview of Western jewellery styles, spanning 2,500 years viewed not through general art history alone, but through the jewel itself.
You can explore it here: Adin Antique Jewellery Academy: Styles & Periods.
We wish you much reading pleasure.
Antiqualy yours,
The Adin team
Rooted and Woven
A Patient Web
Patience has a presence of its own. It can make even small things feel carefully made and quietly lasting.
Then it appears as this jewelled spider, small but full of character. It seemed the right creature to place here while we say goodbye to the old Adin website, which served us for nearly twenty years, and welcome the new one, patiently built over more than three years and brought into use last week.
A few technical matters still need to be resolved before online purchasing returns, but in the meantime you can already visit the new site and head, for example, to the Adin Academy in the header to explore its many chapters.
You can step into our antique jewellery web at www.antiquejewel.com.
Rooted and Winged
Quiet Discovery
Not everything that catches the eye does so at once. Sometimes it stays low among the soil and first green, as if it would rather be found than announced.
Then it shows itself as a jewelled beetle, its domed garnet body glowing darkly against the gold branch it clings to. With ruby eyes, a small scatter of old diamonds, and those lively little legs, this Victorian brooch has something playful.
If you would like to see it on the website, a click will take you there.
Rooted and Winged
Quiet Industry
Something small can sometimes draw the eye simply by being still. Beside the dark earth, the fresh green growth gives the scene a sense of new life without disturbing its calm.
Then the stillness sharpens into form: a jewelled bee, its diamond-set wings outspread, with a ruby at the thorax and small emerald eyes that give it a watchful air. This late Victorian brooch is delicate in scale, yet full of presence, as if industry itself had been briefly given silver wings.
If you would like to see it more closely, a click will take you to it on our website.
Rooted and Winged
Soft Unfolding
A little life can arrive so quietly that it seems less to begin than to gather itself into view. Still damp with earth and morning, it holds that brief, improbable balance between tenderness and form.
Then the shape declares itself: not a creature of leaf and rain, but a jewelled fly, its green-set wings spread lightly around a luminous pearl body. In this small Victorian brooch, rubies burn at the eyes and old rose-cut diamonds catch the light with a softer, duskier fire.
Click to see this fly brooch in full on our website, where it waits with its quiet gleam and its small, enduring strangeness.
More ways to tickle your fancy
A quiet burn.
There are moments that ask very little, only that you do not look away too quickly. The longer you allow them, the more they begin to feel like a choice. Quietly, you give in.
Circa 1940, an 18K bi colour gold ring set with a deep red 7.09ct rubellite, encircled by 24 old mine and single brilliant cut diamonds. A vintage declaration, warm in colour and precise in its geometry.
Click to see this ring in full, and let the colour do the persuading.
More ways to tickle your fancy
Quiet, until the second glance.
There is a kind of confidence that does not announce itself. It holds something back, a sliver of tension, just enough to keep your gaze lingering, just enough to draw you closer. By the time you notice the restraint, you have already been drawn in. And then it has a form.
Circa 1900, a Belle Époque ring, holding three old brilliant cut diamonds, quietly set in smooth bezels. Open scroll shoulders dusting rose cut diamonds and fine millegrain let the ring breathe, with approximately 1.80 carats across the three principal stones.
Click to see this ring in full, and see what stays quiet until you look again.
More ways to tickle your fancy
The art of restraint.
An ice blue flicker, half concealed: a teasing promise of more. The quiet confidence of something made to be looked at twice.
Made around 1950 in platinum, it centres on a natural blue zircon (starlite), about 7.70 carats, set within an octagonal bezel, with stepped diamond set shoulders that keep the line clean and architectural.
Click to sSee this pin in full, and see what the first glimpse did not give away.
More ways to tickle your fancy
A restrained flash behind a veil.
Some brilliance does not wait for a full reveal. Even behind a soft veil, it asks to be noticed, a restrained flash that promises more.
Made around 1950 in platinum, this ring echoes Art Deco clarity in a mid-century key: a certified 1.91 carat brilliant cut diamond, framed by a scalloped halo of diamonds, all precision and balance, and a setting that sits comfortably close to the finger.
Click to see this ring in full, and let the symmetry settle in.
More ways to tickle your fancy
One and one become one.
Two gems, different by nature, brought together in one ring, a sign of two lives joined, known in French as Toi et Moi ('You and Me').
Made around 1900 in yellow gold and platinum, the two terminals curl towards each other in an Art Nouveau sweep, an old European cut diamond meeting an oval ruby, with small antique diamonds along the shoulders.
See this ring in full, and notice how often your eye returns to the meeting point.
Art Deco, Under the Lid
A clean line, strong contrast, and a prominent diamond.
Even through the small opening, it declares itself at once: Art Deco!
With only a sliver visible, the geometry is so strong, so strictly architectural, that you recognise the style before you can even take in the whole.
Small, yet striking in presence, it draws its strength from pure form and a deliberately limited colour palette: the hard black of onyx, the crisp white flash of a rose cut diamond, and the disciplined line of the setting.
Click to see it in full, and let the proportions and contrasts speak.
Click here for more information on this Art Deco diamond and onyx pendant.
Under the Lid, in Bloom
An Art Nouveau brooch worth a closer look.
A flower in bloom for over a century is beginning to show beneath the lid. Curious to see more than just a glimpse of history?
At Adin, we are not chasing big, instant bling. We look for emotion, for design that holds, for a maker's hand you can still sense after generations, because fashions come and go, but what is truly good stays good. Click to see it in full, and look closely at the unusual pearls, often known in the jewellery trade as 'dogtooth' pearls.
Click here for more information on this Art Nouveau gold brooch with dogtooth pearls.
Under the Lid
Where cherished memories begin.
You open the box carefully and peek under the lid. The first shimmer appears: a diamond garland answering the light, its scrolls and drops half revealed in velvet.
This Romantic Victorian choker, originally made to be worn both as a necklace and as a tiara, holds the memory of love stories, candlelit evenings, and the quiet thrill of being dressed for the occasion, just waiting for a neck to return it to its element, an evening dressed for celebration, to be part of occasions that live on as cherished memories.
Click here for more information on this Victorian diamond tiara/choker.
The Flemish Heart, Half Revealed
A love token, more than 250 years on.
Half hidden in its time worn case, a Flemish heart catches the light. Antique jewels are rarely just surface sparkle, they can be small messages worn close, and this heart has carried its quiet love declaration for more than 250 years. Click to see the full piece and read what it was made to say.
Click here for more information on this antique Flemish Heart.
Opening the Year, Gently
A jewel that asks for a second look.
A new year, new promises, caught in what stays half hidden. A glint emerges from a small box, a quiet invitation: jewels that do not call for an instant 'oh' or 'ah', but ask for a more attentive gaze, until they slowly reveal what was there all along.
Click here for more information on this Victorian sculpted hand stickpin holding a diamond.