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A brief D&E Juliana Identification Guide, In My Own Words DeLizza and Elster, aka Juliana Jewelry, is perhaps one of the most sought after and difficult to identify lines of jewelry on the collectors market today. It was manufactured in the 1940's through the 1960's and even a bit into the 1970's. None of the pieces were signed. The name Juliana actually refers to only one of the lines of jewelry created by DeLizza and Elster, and they had a huge number of different lines over the 50 or so years that they were in business. There was one thing that really stuck to each line though, and that was the craftsmanship maintained in the creation of every piece of jewelry they made. Each item of jewelry created by DeLizza and Elster is pretty much a little piece of artwork...a small masterpiece, if you will. D&E (Juliana) jewelry is most generally constructed with quality beads and stones and combined in a wide variety of unusual, but wonderful jewelry. They used many different colors on each piece most of the time, but The signature stone of D&E jewelry is the slim navette. As I continue to learn I find that they only used the slim navette for a short time, as they were very difficult to work with. Most D&E Jewelry is also constructed with heavy solder, and made from segments of two or three stones which they purchased to make their constructions easier and to produce larger volumes of jewelry faster. They would solder these sections of twos and threes to other pre-made sections to create large, intricate designs. This is why you will find solder puddling on D&E Jewelry. Quite a bit of their jewelry also shows what is known today as "figure-8" puddling, which was the result of one of the two or three section chaton settings after it was soldered to the finished piece and then plated with whatever finish had been decided upon.. Another couple of notes on D&E Jewelry. D&E almost exclusively used a built in pin-back consisting of a joint, a catch and a pin. That's not definitive, as at one point they did use an attachable clasp for a less expensive line of jewelry. These attachable clasps were usually attached to the pin using reinforcing solder in two points of the bar pin rather than the industry standard of one solder point in the center of the bar pin. Another common feature in D&E jewelry is the use of rivets (eyelets) in the construction of larger brooch or necklace pieces to provide stability to the larger or more intricate designs. This does not mean that there is a rivet on every cup that attaches a stone to a piece of jewelry...that design is distinctly NOT DeLizza and Elster style...unless they were making product for another company. Finally, nearly all D&E Clip-on earrings were created with earrings backs that had holes in them. That wasn't the definitive rule either, as they were limited to what was available to them on the market at the time they needed them, but as a general rule there will be holes in the back of D&E earring clips. Collectors and buyers should always be very careful when they are purchasing pieces of jewelry being advertised as Juliana. There are many great people out there selling jewelry who believe that they have a good knowledge of D&E jewelry, but really don't know all of the things that they need to know to make the determination successfully. It's always best to get a variety of opinions if you believe that a piece is D&E rather than to just assume that it is since it has some of the standard design characteristics of classic Juliana jewelry. Also, be wary of pieces that say Juliana-style jewelry. Pieces signed like that are not verified as D&E. The seller knows that, and has been as honest as he can in telling you that he's not sure, just by adding that word "style" behind his use of the word Juliana Any jewelry you ever see being sold as D&E, DeLizza and Elster, or Juliana here on "The Discerning Blonde will always have been verified through "The Discovering Juliana Jewelry aka D&E" group on Yahoo! Those who join this group enjoy a verification process where majority rules, and is sometimes even overruled by Mr. Frank DeLizza himself. Pieces of suspected Juliana are submitted on Wednesday of each week, and voted on by all members who wish to participate, with each giving consideration to design, color scheme, and construction of the pieces of jewelry. If a general consensus isn't reached by the group or if the voting is too close to call, the piece of jewelry is then sent on to Mr. DeLizza, who looks the piece up in his books and makes the final determination. If you are an owner, collector, or even an admirer of this kind of jewelry, I highly recommend joining the DJJ club on Yahoo! Some of the best known collectors of jewelry in the world are members, and it's really great to learn from their combined knowledge. |
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