Designer of the Week
Who is Van Dell?
Dates of Operation - 1938 to the present
Design Characteristics - good quality floral designs, often gold filled, and occasionally in sterling silver. Pretty rhinestone designs which often originally sold in sets.
©2007 Vintage Jewelry Lane
The Van Dell Corporation was founded in in 1938 in Providence Rhode Island. The company manufactured well made sterling silver, gold filled and gold plated jewelry. Many of their designs used cultured pearls and interesting rhinestones and other stones such as Austrian Crystals and included genuine hand carved cameos in their range. The jewelry was of high quality and was meant to resemble fine jewelry. Some of their early pieces sold for $65 or more in the 1960s, which was quite expensive for the time.
The mark Van Dell was first used in 1939. As with many of the designers of the middle of the 20th century, Van Dell made a very nice range of hand carved ivory jewelry. These is quite collectible today, since there is a ban on modern ivory products. Their lovely range of genuine ivory jewelry was marked with red and silver foil hang tags. In 1998 the Colibri Company, based in London, England, who also owns Krementz jewelry, purchased the company. Van Dell jewelry is still being made today.
Value of the pieces today - Quite collectible.
Although not considered one of the high end collectible designers, Van Dell does have a following and the pieces can be somewhat hard to find, and not inexpensive. Look for matched sets when you can get them, and if possible in original boxes.
Design Marks - Van Dell 1/20 12K GF and Van Dell Sterling on its own or in combination with a Gold filled marking.
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Van Dell Gold Filled and Sterling |
Van Dell Gold Filled |
"Van Dell Sterling |
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