I was going to only pick one pin, the shaggy dog (which looks so much like my dog) but then started adding other little animals for company. The oldest is probably the tiny lizard on the enamel leaf  (and when I say tiny, I mean less than a half inch long).  The sterling enamel winged scarab beetle is likely Victorian, given it’s original c-clasp (which later broke and had to be replaced), and the paste and sterling winged scarab probably came in the 1920s or early 30s, given its deco shape. The turkey and red and clear paste lizard were made by a little known firm which marked its stuff KP sterling Germany. KP stands for Knoll and Pregizer, a Pforzheim company (Pforzheim being a very active jewellery centre) from the late 1800s to the mid 1950s. Kudos to my friend Robin Deutsch, a wonderful jewellery historian, for unravelling the company behind the name. She has a page with fantastic pictures and information on KP:
http://imageevent.com/nibor56/knollpregizer

KP sterling is exquisite and I’ll be posting more of it in the future. And the large hen is made by Schreiner New York, another fantastic company whose work I collect. What I like best? The attention to detail, like the tiny red enamelled tongue on the dog, the faint tinge of lavender at the tip of the leaf the little lizard is perched on, and the little red stone wattle under the turkey’s chin. That detail is why jewellery, to me, is more than adornment. Often, pieces are tiny works of art.