posted on September 14, 2000 12:20:04 PM
I collect a specific style of elaborately designed Jerusalem crosses, and eBay has been a great source for me in the last year. However, I have a question about 925 silver and the sellers who market Jerusalem crosses on eBay as antiques because they are marked 925 silver. I have seen sellers proclaim that the crosses they are selling are antiques because they are marked 925 silver. Several people have spoken confidently of them dating to 1900 or earlier. I lived in Lebanon when I was a child, which is how I began my collection, and I know for a fact that the crosses I collect were being made when I was there in the late 1950s/early 1960s. I do not know whether or not these crosses were made at the turn of the century, but since some of the pieces I have bear the same jeweler's mark as some of the ones on eBay have had, I question whether these are really antiques.
So my question is this: when did craftspeople start marking jewelry 925 silver?
Secondarily, why do so many sellers market items as antiques when they aren't?!? I grew up in the 1950s/60s and it makes my head spin to see things from that era referred to as "antiques"! (Does that mean I am one, too?!?)
