Antique & Vintage Brooches

The brooch is one of the oldest jewel forms in the world, and for most of its history it was also one of the hardest working: before buttons and zips, a brooch closed a cloak, pinned a scarf, and carried a family's wealth and allegiance in plain sight. The antique brooches at Royal Regency span the form's great decorative age — the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth — when a brooch was not an accessory but a standard part of how a woman dressed, and makers lavished their best work on it.

Victorian brooches speak the era's language of sentiment. Bar brooches carry roses, swallows, and crescent moons; cameo brooches bear profiles carved in shell in the Neoclassical taste; and Scottish pebble jewelry — brooches and kilt pins set with banded agate and bloodstone in engraved sterling silver — was worn with Highland dress and became fashionable far beyond Scotland after the Queen herself embraced it. Hair jewelry belongs to the same world: woven and basket-worked hair, made from the hair of a loved one, turned an ornament into a keepsake that happened to be worn.

By the Edwardian years the brooch had grown lighter and brighter. Paste — fine cut glass, foil-backed and set like diamonds — was worked into bar brooches with seed pearls, and goldsmiths engraved floral designs across warm nine-karat gold. The bar brooch, a horizontal pin worn at the throat or on a blouse, became the period's everyday jewel: modest in size, exact in workmanship, and made to be worn constantly rather than kept for occasions.

Collectors wear these pieces today exactly as they were worn then — at a collar, on a lapel or scarf, or pinned to a hat or bag — and the fittings tell the story of their age: early pieces carry the simple tube hinge and open C-catch, later ones the safety catch that replaced them. Every brooch at Royal Regency is researched before it is listed, its marks read and its stones and materials described as they are, so what you pin on is what we say it is.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a brooch and a pin? Very little, in practice. The pin is the fastening — a stem with a hinge and catch — and the brooch is the ornamental piece built on it. Sellers use the words interchangeably; a bar brooch is a brooch in a long, horizontal form, and a kilt pin is a brooch made to fasten a kilt or heavy wool.

How can you tell how old a brooch is? The fittings are the first clue: nineteenth-century brooches usually have a tube hinge and an open C-shaped catch, while the locking safety catch belongs to the twentieth century. Hallmarks, the cutting of the stones, and hand-made construction confirm what the fittings suggest.

What is a bar brooch? A bar brooch is a long, narrow brooch, often set with stones or pearls or engraved across its face. Victorian and Edwardian women wore them at the throat, on a collar, or centered on a blouse, and they remain the easiest antique brooch to wear with modern clothing.

What is Scottish pebble jewelry? It is the Victorian jewelry of Highland Scotland: brooches, kilt pins, and dirk-shaped pins set with native stones — banded agate, bloodstone, jasper, and Cairngorm quartz — in engraved silver. It was made for Highland dress and became a fashionable souvenir and gift across Britain.

How should an antique brooch be worn today? On a lapel, coat, or scarf it works as it always did. Mind the weight against fine fabrics — heavier brooches belong on wool, denim, or a jacket — and pin through a seam or a doubled layer where you can, so the cloth carries the piece comfortably.

From Our Archive

The brooches below have already been sold through Royal Regency. We keep them here as a record of the pieces we handle — each one researched and checked before it was offered, in the same way as everything in this collection.

A Victorian shell cameo brooch and pendant in 10-karat gold. The profile of a Greek goddess, hand-carved in shell in the Neoclassical taste, made to be worn pinned as a brooch or hung as a pendant. Sold through our Whatnot showroom.

A Victorian monkey brooch in sterling silver and paste. The monkey is set with glittering paste and finished with garnet eyes — the Victorians loved animal jewels, and their menageries in silver were made with real wit as well as skill. Sold through our Whatnot showroom.

A Victorian basket-weave hair brooch, gold filled. Human hair woven into a basket pattern — the sentimental hairwork the Victorians made from the hair of someone they loved, worn as a jewel and kept as a remembrance. Sold through our Whatnot showroom.

A Grand Tour micro mosaic brooch of the Colosseum, 1860s. Hundreds of tiny glass tesserae set in the Roman manner to picture the Colosseum — the souvenir a traveler brought home from Italy, and a small painting in glass. Sold through our Whatnot showroom.

A Victorian Bohemian garnet brooch and pendant, gold over sterling. Rose-cut garnets packed in the tight cluster setting that Bohemia supplied to all of Europe, deep red and made to convert between brooch and pendant. Sold through our Whatnot showroom.

A butterfly brooch in sterling silver, 1940s. Ruby eyes and jadeite wings carry the insect jewel — a Victorian favorite — into the twentieth century, still made by hand and still made to move light. Sold through our Whatnot showroom.