The Lasting Love of Marcasite Jewellery

Marcasite is a visually distinctive, semi-precious metallic stone, used in jewellery as many tiny, faceted pieces, which offer a subtle but beautiful sparkle. 

It has been used for hundreds of years but, in recent times, something called pyrite - also called Fool's Gold - has been used in its place as it is chemically identical to marcasite.

Marcasite has a distinctly vintage look which has enjoyed a huge resurgence in popularity thanks to television series like Downton Abbey, The Crown and Peaky Blinders.

This, along with high-profile celebrities and royalty like the Duchess of Cambridge wearing it, it is back on-trend.

Marcasite jewellery comprises many tiny, faceted stones, offering a subtle but definite sparkle.

A Vintage Look

As already mentioned, marcasite has a wonderful vintage appeal to it. Used extensively in Victorian times and during the Art Noveau and Art Deco eras, the resurgence in popularity of these periods means it always remains popular.

The blackened look of marcasite works well against polished silver (as shown in the cat brooch below). 

Vintage marcasite pieces are still widely available now at antique fairs and many of our customers bring us pieces that they have purchased extremely cheaply in a flea market or car boot sale that they need repairing, with the odd missing stone. 

Understated Elegance

The Victorian gem cutters managed to facet marcasite into little stones with pointed fronts and flat backs – known as the flattened-rose cut. This created a great play on light and made a wonderful sparkle.

The slightly blackened or oxidised appearance of marcasite has been adored for centuries and it offers such a wonderful elegant sparkle without being glitzy or over-the-top.

Many people love this look – they don’t want ostentatious, in-your-face bling but a little sparkle as you move. 

Perfect For Accentuating

The subtle shimmer of this material looks fabulous framing a gemstone or along the outside edge of a piece of jewellery as it highlights the main stone in a rather special way.

This is so effective that you will find many pieces of silver jewellery with marcasite edges, like the butterfly brooch below, which catch the light and sparkle as you move.

Marcasite Designs

Each of the little pieces of marcasite used is between 1 mm and 4 mm across which, when set together, have a scintillating appeal. 

Because of their size, the stones offer themselves perfectly to create shapes and explore intricate designs. They are perfect to fill shapes and swirls or set as edges in pendants and brooches.

The swirly, intricate and floral designs of Victorian jewellery were no problem to jewellers when this material was used.  Neither were the angular, geometric shapes that became popular in the art-nouveau era and later the art-deco period.

When Was Marcasite Most Popular?

The Victorians used these gemstones a lot in their jewellery and also extensively used in art-nouveau and art-deco jewellery.

Whilst you don't see it everywhere, we have always sold it in our jewellers and it remains consistently loved.

Marcasite is popular at Christmas and the party season for those who like to add a little sparkle to their look - it suits casual and evening attire.

Necklaces, bracelets or drop earrings set with these stones worn with a little black dress look very elegant.

Marcasite rings and brooches remain a big hit - the effect of it as you move and the tiny pieces catch the light are quite mesmerising.

Try a piece of marcasite, like a brooch, to highlight a part of an outfit. 

The History of Marcasite

The beautiful lustre of this material lent itself to jewellery making from early on, despite it being somewhat difficult to work with.

When they discovered it, the Ancient Greeks made marcasite ornaments to wear.

South American Incas loved to polish large slabs of it used, for instance, as a table. Indeed, many decorations were found in Inca tombs in South America, including surfaces used in rituals and worship of the sun golds.

Cleopatra was found to have worn this gemstone making it popular with the Egyptians.

Native American shamans used these semi-precious stones to heal as they believed it helped to access the soul of the person they worked with.

In Place of Diamonds

In the 1600’s buying and selling of diamonds were heavily restricted. Louis 14th of France decreed that only he should wear real diamonds!

This didn’t stop people from wanting to wear diamonds and, as normally happens with banned products,  a black-market supply started to thrive.

Marcasite offered a fabulous substitute for the less wealthy, or those who were outlawed from purchasing diamonds.

Victorian Marcasite

Queen Victoria in England, with her extensive mourning period after the death of her beloved Prince Albert to the point that it lasted for the rest of her life – over four decades instead of what was the usual two years, at that time!

Her subsequent attire meant she wore much more toned-down pieces of jewellery than was usual for a Queen. The fabulous, less ostentatious marcasite fitted the bill perfectly and she wore many pieces of marcasite jewellery throughout this long period.

As with modern-day celebrities and royalty, this started a trend among Victorian ladies.  This is why you can still find many Victorian antique marcasite jewels, including brooches, in antique fairs even now.

We detailed in our article, The History of Jewellery, how flowers formed a massive inspiration in jewellery design during the Victorian era and many of these intricate marcasite ornaments were floral.

Art Noveau and Art Deco Marcasite

Another period when marcasite was used extensively was during the Art Deco period.

Art-deco designs involved straight lines and angles, and geometric shapes with bold, contrasting colours.

As the primary metals of the day were sterling silver or platinum with diamonds or bright crystals, the jewellery designers used marcasite along with darker gemstones, such as onyx, for high contrast.

These plain, geometric shapes of art-deco jewellery, were accentuated by the tiny facets of marcasite.

Marcasite vs Pyrite

The true mineral marcasite (pronounced Marc-a-seet), is white iron pyrite (an iron sulphide).  At one point it was used in all marcasite jewellery.

Pyrite is also an iron sulphide. It has a metallic lustre and a yellowish hue, hence it being called ‘Fool’s Gold’.

It is relatively hard, measuring 6 – 6.5 on the Moh’s scale. But it is quite brittle and unstable to work with.

Whilst the minerals marcasite and pyrite have the same chemistry, they have different crystal structures. Marcasite has an orthorhombic crystal structure (meaning it forms into columns) whilst pyrite has a cubic crystal structure making it more stable and less prone to splintering.

Because the columns formed in the mineral are brittle and can be fractured easily. This fragility is hard to work with, so using pyrite instead eliminates this risk.

Today, and even in antique jewellery, a gold-coloured stone called pyrite, or “Fool’s Gold”, is used.

For this reason, it is not uncommon to see many examples of Victorian ornaments are often discovered to be in excellent condition.

Marcasite Gemstone Occurrence

Pyrite is found near the surface in sedimentary rocks like clay, chalk and limestone and is common in hydrothermal veins.

It is found around the world in many places, including the USA where it is mined in Illinois, Wisconsin and Missouri.

In the UK it is found in Derbyshire and Dover.  It also occurs in France, Austria, Germany the Czech Republic and further afield in countries like China, Peru and Mexico.

Caring for Your Marcasite Jewellery

The usual adage that your jewellery should be the last thing you put on in the morning and the first thing you take off when you return home applies even more so when wearing this jewellery.

You should always ensure that your marcasite jewellery never gets wet or even near moisture. This is particularly important with marcasite rings, which you are more likely to forget you are wearing when you wash your hands.

The intricate pieces are often set with jewellers glue and any liquids could dissolve the glue meaning you may lose little bits of the gemstones if you get your jewellery wet.

Cleaning Marcasite 

As we’ve explained, Marcasite should never be immersed in any liquid including never dipping in sterling silver cleaning solution or placed in an ultrasonic machine.

The same applies to ultrasonic cleaners. Placing your precious trinkets into an ultrasonic machine agitates the debris on the article to clean it. Placing marcasite into an ultrasound machine it may loosen the tiny pieces and you may discover many little bits in the bottom of the machine after you've finished cleaning.

The best way to clean these jewels is to wipe over the surface with a barely damp cloth and immediately dry with a lint-free dry cloth. 

Alternatively, clean the piece with a soft silver jewellery cleaning cloth like this one.

Replacing Marcasite Stones

It can be incredibly disappointing to notice a tiny piece missing from a favourite jewel.

These metal pyrite stones are now available in multiple shapes, not just the flattened-rose style pieces.

Our workshop holds plenty of spare pieces of marcasite so we can replace missing stones for you. The skill is in ensuring the pieces match.  Please send us an enquiry here if you need an item restored.

How To Spot Genuine Antique Marcasite

Whilst it can be tricky, there are several pointers to look out for when you shop if you are trying to ascertain if a piece advertised in a collection is antique is or not.

Test With A Magnet

Some fake pieces (even old pieces of jewellery) may be set with steel, not marcasite or pyrite.  If so, they will be attracted to a magnet.

Note that the clasp of the item you are looking at may be made of base metal in which case this will be attracted to the magnet – so test on an area away from the catch.

Rivets

The tiny pieces in fakes were often “stamped” into the base plate.  If you look at the back of the item you are inspecting, you may be able to see the rivets poking into the base, from the underside.

Silver Instead of Marcasite Pieces

Another tell-tale sign is if you look very closely at the piece you are inspecting you may notice that most of what you thought were little pieces of marcasite are just silver “beads”.

From a distance, it can be quite convincing although it won’t give the same sparkle as the real deal. This is sometimes done to create the illusion of a cubic zirconia or diamond also.

How Has The Marcasite Been Set?

The third check is to observe how the small pieces of faceted stones have been set. 

If it’s a genuine article, you will often see a tiny bit of silver holding the very edge of the gem.  This little ‘bead’ of sterling silver, although not quite a claw, acts like a claw holding the very edge of the piece of marcasite in place.

These are the best pieces and well worth finding.

Sometimes, the pieces were set with an edge of silver hammered around the stone to hold each piece.

Just imagine how time-consuming many of these processes were!  You can understand why glueing the individual stones into sterling silver became a much more efficient way of creating a piece of marcasite jewellery.

To Sum Up...

We hope you can now appreciate the beauty and workmanship in the wonderful pieces of marcasite jewellery you see. We are often amazed at how reasonable these pieces are to buy, considering the intricate work that goes into creating them.

It could become the most wonderful hobby, finding fabulous marcasite designs in charity shops, or car-boot sales.

Do share your comments (or finds!) in the comments below.

Sources:
Gem Society
Modern Vintage Style
Junkbox Treasures Antiques and Collectibles