Amid the old pocket watches, vintage lamps, beer steins and postcards at The Parisian Flea store in Hampden is a small, 14-carat gold brooch with an oak leaf emblem. It sells for $595.
There's nothing surprising about the Victorian-era piece, until Andrew Bruchey, owner of the five-year-old store on The Avenue that sells all things yesteryear, explains that the hair of a long-ago loved one was carefully woven into it, sometime during the mid- to late-1800s.
The brooch falls into a little-known category called mourning or remembrance jewelry — and Bruchey, 32, is a collector of it. He estimates he has 50 to 60 pieces, some of which he sells at the store for $30 to $1,800, mostly depending on its condition.
He owns pieces, some with hair, known as hairwork jewelry, that date as far back as the late-18th century. The oldest, which he isn't selling, is a Navette ring with a picture under the glass of a mourner in a graveyard and a weeping willow tree. At first glance, it looks like a painting, and it is, but with a twist. A powder of finely ground human hair has been mixed in with the paint.
"You can still see very small flecks of hair," said Bruchey, who stresses that he is an enthusiast but not a licensed antiques or jewelry appraiser. "This is one of the best I've seen. If I was to sell it in the store, I'd probably put (a price tag of) $1,600 on it. It's a piece of jewelry (that the original owner) probably would have worn every day. It has held up especially well."
The first question this begs is, why anyone would want to incorporate human hair into a ring. The second question is why Bruchey would want to collect jewelry that he said many people find creepy.
In a way, the answers to both questions complement each other.
"It's such a niche market," he admitted, adding, "I'm very weird," especially to be so attracted to a long-ago art form at such a young age.
He said people either love it or hate it, and he falls into the former group:
"Personally, I think it's romantic. A lot of people hear me and say, 'Ugh!' I never get a neutral response."
For him, "it's the idea that you had so much emotion and love for someone that you would take part of them to keep with you. You're memorializing a part of them and making art out of it."
He also sells the occasional post-mortem or remembrance photograph in his store, like the daguerreotype inside a Civil War locket that also has a lock of hair in the back.
"It's one of the few pieces that show both the person and the hair," Bruchey said.
Inspired by Queen Victoria
Bruchey said most of the remembrance and mourning jewelry he finds is from the mid-1800s, because its popularity spiked during the Civil War, when a wife or a mother would cut off a lock of soldier's hair before he went off to battle and use it in remembrance jewelry. If the soldier never returned, it became mourning jewelry, Bruchey said.
The jewelry of the day was meant to be plain and had emblems such as oak leaves, which had meaning to Victorians.
"The oak leaf had meaning," he said. "Feathers had meaning [of ascension]. Pearls signified remembrance."
Acorns, for instance, lauded for centuries as the source of "the mighty oak," as the saying goes, were seen as symbols of rebirth and renewal in Victorian times.
Mourning jewelry was inspired by Queen Victoria, who wore mourning attire for the rest of her life after her husband, Albert, died in 1861, collector Mary Brett writes in her 2006 book, "Fashionable Mourning Jewelry, Clothing & Customs."
"The world followed Queen Victoria's lead," Brett wrote. "Death was a constant companion for Victorians ... No Victorian home was without memorial photographs and art displayed in remembrance of deceased relatives and close friends."
Everything from post-mortem postcards to mourning pins were popular in the day, Brett wrote. Hairwork jewelry was popular because of its "sentimental nature" and enduring quality," she wrote, adding that teeth were also used in making mourning jewelry.
In her 1998 book, "Collector's Encyclopedia of Hairwork Jewelry," longtime antique jewelry dealer and hairwork jewelry collector Jeananne Bell wrote that the jewelry was popular among collectors, although "they usually do not know how to begin to evaluate piece with such little intrinsic value."
She also said that museums around the United States and Europe "display many fine examples of this craft."
But, like Bruchey, she said that although Victorians were high on hair as a token of love or the commemoration of important events, "There are no (modern day) middle-of-the-roaders when it comes to hairwork jewelry. The response to it is either, 'Ugh, I don't want to touch that,' or 'My goodness, how did they ever do that intricate work?'"
For the collector, "It's a pretty easy hobby to get into because you can get pieces that are fairly affordable," Bruchey said.
And for the buyer, "You can get a pretty basic pin in the $100 to $200 range."
He looks "all over the place" for the jewelry, including networking with other antique dealers in the region and talking to people who come in to sell jewelry.
A dead art
The problem, Bruchey conceded, is that there's not much of a market for it, partly because of its obscurity.
"It hasn't been done in hundreds of years," he said. "A lot of (owners) may not know what they have."
Antiques dealer Blair Jett agreed.
"You don't see it much anymore," said Jett, who owns the 25-year-old Cottage Antiques store on Main Street in Ellicott City. He sold Bruchey his very first piece of mourning jewelry, a monogrammed ring with hair woven into it, as well as the 1789 Navette ring.
Jett said he used to see more such jewelry some years ago when he bought the entire contents of houses.
But he said dealers now are pickier about what they buy, and that the public is pickier about what it sells, because people are more educated about the value of jewelry, thanks to resources such as "Antiques Roadshow" on TV.
"It just doesn't turn up much," Jett said. "It's harder to find and there aren't a lot of customers for it."
But when it does turn up, he knows who to turn to — "You have to find the right buyer for it," someone like Bruchey., who loves it.
"When you have the connections, it's so much easier," Jett said.
Not for everyone
"It's not something other dealers take an interest in," Bruchey said. "It's not going to be for everyone."
But he's good with that.
"I don't really sell as much as I collect. I'm a collector first and a dealer second. Sometimes, I consider myself almost like a pet rescue."
The Navette ring is a case in point.
"[Jett] contacted me about it. He knew I'd be interested. I didn't think about it for a second. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to have it."