A Mystery to Me

Not to be a pain or anything, but I don’t understand why there’s this thought that just because something’s older it’s “old pawn.” Pawn has actual meaning - it has to have been pawned (and be QUITE old to be true old pawn). I have numerous unsigned pieces that I just call older (or oldish). There’s no way of knowing if it was ever pawned without a pawn ticket. The purist in me gets a bit frustrated seeing how much that term is thrown around online. Here’s an interesting thread on that topic. “OldPawn” Clarification & Definition Needed

Now it is possible that maybe somewhere along the line this piece was pawned. But something can be a beautiful older piece without ever having been pawned. I think it’s become a marketing term that means nothing anymore, unless you’re buying from legitimate traders. I even have a number of pawn tickets from some of my items, and they’re not “old pawn;” they were just pawned.

Sorry, I got up on my soapbox a bit :grin: And hopefully someone on here with more knowledge about how to tell how old something is will come on and comment about the age of your cuff. I don’t know when it became normal practice to hallmark pieces (70’s - 80’s maybe?).

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