posted 01-31-2011 06:29 PM            

I have long hair that I like putting up with silver hair combs. I've recently admitted that the accumulation is turning into a collection. I was considering asking Scott to make a slide show of my combs, but I don't have all that many yet, and I don't actually know very much about them. So instead I'll post a photo here and ask if anyone else shares my interest and would like to add their own.

I believe my combs are all American, from the 1870s-1910s. I speculate that the big ones are from the 1870s, when ladies wore huge hanks of fake hair pinned to the backs of their heads. The lowest comb--which is silver plated (the rest are sterling)--is marked Pat. Apr. 20, 1873. (It was re-plated at some point, blurring the date, so that might be Apr 22, 1878 or some such. But definitely the 1870s.)

The smaller ones may be later. The one on the far right certainly is, anyway. See how the shape is not just abstract laciness but the year 1893? I've decided on the basis of sheer imagination that it was a party favor at a New Year's ball.

None of my combs has a manufacturer's mark, though most of them are marked "Sterling," sometimes with what I take to be a model number.

I've decided--once again on the basis of zero evidence--that the leftmost and rightmost combs in the top row are by the same manufacturer. Their construction is very similar, as is the skill with which they were engraved.

Let me know if anyone wants to see closer views of any of them. And please add your own!

posted 02-01-2011 09:39 PM            

thank you very much!

posted 02-02-2011 12:55 AM            

I'll get my husband to take a photo of the back of my head if the sun ever comes out (ice storms predicted for the foreseeable future). But I'm pretty sure the original wearers were supplementing their locks with extra hairpieces, so my hairdo won't look original.

I would love to know exactly how old the various combs are and how they worked in hairdos. Maybe that's my next research project.

posted 02-05-2011 12:50 PM            

In this photo, I'm wearing the biggest of the sterling ones and the two that are crossed in the middle of the first photo, all holding up a simple bun.

The big comb sticks up over the top of my head--you can see it from the front. But it's not engraved on that side, so I think that side must not have been meant to be seen. So either the big comb was meant to be worn lower on the back of the head--and I can't figure out how to do that without it falling off--or the ladies had more hair piled up at the top of their heads that hid it. If so, it was probably artificial hair, since my hair is pretty long and thick.

posted 02-06-2011 01:17 PM            

The big one has a sort of tiara effect. But, like you, I'm not sure that the placement is right. I wonder if in fact it's meant to face forward, jabbed into some humongous false-hair chignon. Or maybe even run perpendicularly into the side of a chignon at the nape of the neck.

posted 02-08-2011 05:36 PM            

The smaller ones can be used to hold up your hair above your ear on one side, normally placed in your hair there at a bit of a rakish angle.

I have also seen some larger ones worn with the design side facing forward in a Spanish style hairdo with the comb sticking up high in a pile of hair on the top back part of your head with the design fully visible from the front, and with a Spanish lace cloth coming off of it, covering the plain back of the comb and falling down around the sides and back of your head and the neck. That is the old Spanish style.

posted 02-08-2011 08:15 PM            

Does that make sense? It would if I could draw it.

Kimo's low-bun suggestion is not out of the question. When I do that, my hair does stay up, and the comb isn't visible from the front. But the tines have an unpleasant tendency to poke me in the back of my neck, and it's an awfully simple hairstyle for such an elaborate comb. But maybe part of the hair was meant to be made into a low bun, with other parts twirled around here and there and the occasional dangling ringlet, flower, and artificial bird.

I don't think these particular combs were meant to be worn sideways, because their engraving seems to have a vertical orientation. But maybe they could be worn at a rakish angle.

posted 02-09-2011 11:28 AM            

The next one is from the 1880s or 90s and is properly considered a hair pin--an ornament that helped keep the large hair-dos of the period in place. Marked only sterling.

The third is a stamped rococo silver hair ornament/pin with a horn prong. Probably 1895-1905. Marked sterling and lacquered to prevent tarnish. You can see how bright and sparkly it would have been originally.

posted 02-09-2011 11:35 AM            

A neo-grec back hair comb, marked only STERLING with a nice bit of brite-cutting and an acid-matte finish. I'd say 1870s.

Another one, but marked by Albert Coles, a fairly obscure silversmith of some note in NYC--

Here is the reverse with the marks

It too was lacquered to prevent tarnish and the lacquer has somewhat failed.
Nice brite-cutting front and back, acid matte finish. Closer to 1880...

And finally, a marked Dominick & Haff back hair comb with a lovely asymmetrical applied palm frond, and dated as D&H is wont to do to 1887.

posted 02-19-2011 03:01 PM            

This one's a little mysterious. It's clearly one of those big 1870s back combs, bright-cut on both sides, with the early Wood & Hughes W&H mark, not the later WwH (also marked STERLING 26), but it's engraved with a date: "Mar. 16, '96." It also has a name that seems to have been revised. And the gilding is flaking in places and seems to have been applied after the main engraving but before the name and the date.

My guess is that it belonged to Marjie P. Dunham in the 1870s and she gave it to her daughter Mary P. Dunham in 1896 after having her jeweler alter the name and add the date. Anyone agree or disagree?

Front:


Back:

Marks and name:

posted 06-15-2011 12:16 PM            

The green leaves have blue-green enamel on the fronts and light yellow-green on the back. The dark red tulips are plique-a-jour. It's 7-1/4" H and 2-3/8" W and very pretty and delicate in person.

posted 03-06-2013 12:28 PM            

From the museum website:

After Charles Lewis Tiffany, founder of Tiffany & Company, died in 1902, his son Louis Tiffany was able to pursue artistic jewelry without reticence. He began working on this pursuit in 1902 to prepare himself for the St. Louis fair of 1904, where he exhibited twenty-seven pieces of jewelry. Tiffany Furnaces initially produced the jewelry, but after 1907 Tiffany & Company acquired Louis's artistic jewelry department. This hair ornament is one of the most extraordinary pieces of Tiffany's surviving jewelry, incorporating a remarkably realistic rendering of two dragonflies resting on two dandelion seedballs. Tiffany designed the hair ornament for Louisine W. Havemeyer, who, with her husband Henry Osborne Havemeyer were among Tiffany's most enlightened and devoted patrons. The hair ornament was known only from archival photographs in the collection of the Tiffany & Company Archives until Louisine's great-granddaughter brought it to the Museum's attention. The piece epitomizes his earliest jewelry designs, which were based directly on modest forms in nature, such as field flowers and wild fruit, as well as his affinity for enameling and semiprecious stones with unusual colors. The dragonflies rest on dandelion seedballs, one of which is shown partially blown away, underscoring the fragility of nature. Highly skilled artisans conveyed the transparency of the insects' wings through delicate metalwork filigree. The temporal quality is revealed in the subject: dragonflies rest in one place for mere seconds before flitting away; dandelions disperse into thousands of airborne seeds with the gentlest of breezes.

Oh, and it comes with a case.

posted 03-08-2013 01:13 PM            

Seriously good catch and yes they are beautiful gems as are so many of the "non" precious stones.