Many collectors of vintage powder compacts and handbags will recognise the brand names Majestic & Majestry. Nathan Kasdan was the founder of the firm who owned these brand names. This company was known as the Majestic Metal Specialities Company of New York. Kasdan was a highly skilled metal worker who was born in Russia in 1889. Kasdan emigrated to America and entered the workforce as a metal worker just before the Russian Revolution.
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It is impossible to look at the photograph of Manfred Durst on the identity document provided to him by His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom without feeling sad for all the casualties of WWII. Manfred was one of the children who arrived in Great Britain as part of the Kindertransport humanitarian rescue programme.
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Joseph Ettlinger and his partner Adolphe Aron were located at 60 Aldermanbury London EC from the late 1860s until the beginning of the 1870s. They were the London partners of Triefus & Ettlinger of 103 rue du Temple, Paris. Both gentlemen became particularly well known for their jewellery, cases, elegant fans, leather & ivory goods. The firm also imported French made luxury accessories. Joseph Ettlinger became the Master of the Worshipful Fan Makers Company in 1904.
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There has been a fascination for ancient Egypt for hundreds if not thousands of years. William Shakespeare’s play Antony and Cleopatra was first performed by the King’s Men in London c.1607. The plot is based on Thomas North's 1579 translation from Plutarch's Lives. Plutarch (c. AD 46 – after AD 119) was a Greek historian, philosopher and a priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi.
In recent history this fascination was fuelled by the Napoleonic War in the Middle East.
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Seals have been used since ancient times to seal goods and important communications. Seals were used as early as the seventh millennium B.C. to stamp impressions in clay. In the fourth millennium B.C. carved cylinders that could be rolled over clay were being used in Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia included parts of modern day Iran, Syria & Turkey. The cylinder seals were used to create frieze-like designs on clay.
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The firm was founded in 1901 by William Benjamin Broadway. The company is still located in the same area of Birmingham today, which is known as the Jewellery Quarter. In the Edwardian era the Jewellery Quarter was as busy as it is today. The location is noted as a centre for the production of jewellery and many other industries, especially metal working. It is a conservation area with over 200 listed buildings. English Heritage described the quarter as - a unique historic environment in England – a national treasure....a place of unique character with jewellery and metalworking which does not seem to exist anywhere else in the world. The trade of jewellery making in this region dates back to the mediaeval era.
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