Stick Pins

Miniature portrait of a boy by Jacques Lemoine (1790)

"The wearing of stickpins began as a practical method of securing the voluminous neckwear, that was worn, both as a practical way of keeping warm and protecting the shirt from the debris of careless eaters, but also as part of the fine feathers of the strutting gentlemen peacocks of the eighteenth century.   The period from the late eighteenth century, when the wearing of stickpins became fashionable, to the beginning of the twentieth century was a period of great change and also of an enormous spread of wealth." 

(Taken from About Stickpins, A Brief History - http://www.fineperiodjewels.com/about_stickpins.php)

Copyright K. Walters at the Sign of the Gray Horse.  None of this can be copied or used without the permission of Kimberly K. Walters.