Vintage Heart Charms For Valentines Day
I've written about my vintage gold heart charm bracelet before but since it's almost Valentines day and I'm digging it out of the drawer to wear I thought I've revive the photo and showcase it again.
Did you ever wonder how a heart came to symbolize love and Valentine's day? There are a few theories, not all of them romantic.
1) In 700 BC the North African city of Cyrene grew a plant called silphium, which was thought to be a contraceptive. The city had a lucrative trade business involving the plant and minted coins that showed the plant's seed pod, which looks like a heart. Meaning the heart was first related to money and sex, and then later love.
2) Many ancient cultures thought the human heart contained all emotions and passion, and the heart shape was a primitive attempt to draw the real heart organ. This belief was emphasized because of the feelings of the heart beating fast when a person was excited, and the heavy feeling in one's chest when heartbroken.
3) Catholics believe that in the 17th century Saint Mary Alocoque had a vision of a heart shape wrapped with thorns. A picture of the dream became known as "The Sacred Heart of Jesus" and came to represent love and devotion. This was about the same time that Valentines Day became a popular holiday in England and because the two were both related to love the symbol of a heart became a Valentines Day icon.
4) A less pure and more erotic explanation is that the round soft edges and pointed tip of the heart look like various sexual parts of a woman's body, and Valentine's day, being all about love, connected the heart image and the holiday.
Whether you have a sweetheart this Valentine's day or just want to wrap yourself in lovely heart jewelry, there are more variations of heart jewelry than probably any other symbol. I like to buy vintage hearts on ebay. There's always a never ending supply.
 |
| Ebay has returned a malformed xml response. This could be due to testing or a bug in the RSS2 Generator. Please check the support forums to see if there are any posts regarding recent RSS2 Generator bugs. No items matching the keyword phrase "heart charm" were found. This could be due to the keyword phrase used, or could mean your server is unable to communicate with Ebays RSS2 Server. CURL error code = 6. (Could not resolve host: rest.ebay.com) |
Category: Private Jewelry Collection
About the Author (Author Profile)
Wanda Fitzgerald is a Florida native and an vintage charm collector who loves to share her adventures in an e-commerce jewelry business with anyone who is interested.Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
