Photos

Comments

• 

  Betty March 5, 2015 at 10:20am

  Very fancy and sparkling and certainly effective eye-catchers.

  All the same: the old ones got more "soul" :-)
• 

  Mustafa J. Salem March 5, 2015 at 11:58am

  The old ones are only used by very few people. Most people go for what is presented to them in the market, which is not directly linked to the history of jewellery in Libya. Sad thing is they melt the older stuff for making these items which are sold for the clients.
• 

  Betty March 5, 2015 at 2:06pm

  I am afraid that's the same almost everywhere...one of the dark sides of globalisation and consumerism.
• 

  ingrid Langerak March 5, 2015 at 4:22pm

  The melting down of old jewels is also a common factor here in Europe. Large set-ups are advertising to sell your old jewels  gold and silver and  cutlery for the melting down.
• 

  Alaa eddine SAGID March 5, 2015 at 5:00pm

  Through my collecting life i have certainly come to drastically change my mind regarding the melting of old pieces. Actually in the arabic/muslim world precious jewelry was meant to store wealth and be periodically sold for cash and of course sold to buy new models following trends that used to change through time (power shifts, population migrations...)....so it is somehow on par with the long term history continuation of shifting trends.....
  Now as our world goes globalized, it is normal that jewelry across the world follows the same trend with minor cultural differences.....i have been across the middle east and north africa and thz shift is very strong towards the same glitters with more focus on western style pieces with diamonds and precious stones for the elite while the lower stratas are patronizing indian made jewelry marketed in dubai and gulf rich states.
  
  It seems however that the collecting mania which is flourishing across the globe came as an aswer to this destructive wave of old models....and that is a new paradygm which did not exist before.
• 

  ingrid Langerak March 5, 2015 at 5:41pm

  Alaa my experience in selling my genuine old Ethiopain coptic crosses is quite rough.  Because of the world market has been flooded with the newly made (very rough) and nickel material and sold for very little money, and........ often being sold for the real thing, people have nothing to compare  it to and mistrusting the genuine old ones , mostly made of silver, and not wanting to pay for it.

  Sigh.....sigh! 
• 

  Mustafa J. Salem March 5, 2015 at 6:30pm

  Yes Alaa's accessment is right people keep their jewellery as a part of their wealth. So they go for modern things when they can and the solution is to trade the old for newer. The problem I think now is that some people as collectors try to save these old items by being charged a lot of money for them so the dealers do not have to melt them as they can get better value if sold as used items. But this is limited to urban areas and may be more in the west where more collectors can afford the prices.   I have posted these just to show our colleagues that the trend is the same here as in other parts of the World. Thank you for all your comments.