Why is a tie pin listed as a brooch?

The category takes in stick pins, tie pins and bar brooches, and dealers catalogue them by their own reading. Brooch appears in roughly half the titles, stick in a quarter. So a piece filed under tie pins may be titled a bar brooch or a lapel pin. The mounting is the thing to read, not the heading.

What metals do these pins come in?

Gold leads, in seven titles out of ten, across 9ct, 14ct, 15ct and 18ct. A 15ct mark indicates a British piece made before 1932. Platinum and 18ct white gold turn up at the upper end. Chrome appears at the other, in enamel gents' pins of about 1930.

How old are antique tie pins usually?

The dealers' own dating spans 1860 to 1960, with 23 of the sampled listings carrying a clean year. Edwardian and Victorian pieces lead, followed by the 1920s and 1930s. A few titles reach further back, claiming Georgian and Regency dating, and both of those are stick pins. Dates in a title and dates in the structured field don't always agree.

Are sporting subjects common on pin heads?

They recur. A running fox with a riding crop, a hunting bugle, two horseshoes, a jockey cap set with a garnet and a fox in carved rock crystal have all come through. Alongside them sits a smaller seam of badges: a Royal Naval Crown, a yacht club pin, a Masonic pin, a naval sweetheart brooch.

Which stones turn up most often?

Diamond is named in over a third of titles, pearl in a quarter. Rose cut, old cut and old brilliant diamonds all appear. Beyond those, the bar brooches bring aquamarine, opal, garnet and ruby. Baroque and natural pearls are stated separately from plain pearl.

How many antique tie pins come up for sale?

Around seven a year on Sellingantiques, and 25 different dealers have listed one. That means the category is spread thin. Most dealers have handled a single example rather than a run of them.