Pretty AGD pin
 

Hi ladies...

Not sure if you have seen this, but there is a beautiful opal AGD badge on Ebay now :mad:

Sure hope it goes to an AGD sister.

I saw that. I tried to bid on it but someone has an automatic bid going up to Lord knows what price =( i hope the other person is an Alpha Gam too! and yes, it is definitely gorgeous!!!

Um, 1903? We weren't founded until 1904. :rolleyes:

"Estate fresh"??

Doesn't that sound like they took it right off the body?

Somebody explained to the seller that 1903 is a member number for that very reason.

The writing is really faint on the back. I bet it really says 1908.

there is a DG pin on there right now too :(

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-10K-...f#ht_624wt_922

Didn't know it could be ordered with pearls.

How did I miss this? I ebay search AGD almost every day.

The design looks like one of the first badges made by a local jeweler. Note that the Gamma is not "chased" (engraved) the way the standard badges are.

The eBay listing Q&A section says that the badge likely belonged to Cynthia Geer who was initiated into Alpha Chapter in 1958. How would she have gotten by without buying a standard badge? Might she have been a descendant of a founder or early member and have inherited a non-standard badge?

That clasp isn't from 1958. I have one that looks like that and it's from the teens.

Exactly why the back of the badge/pin is just as important as the front, and why the original engraving should be maintained whenever possible, IMO. What stories are told by the backs of our jewelry!

Perhaps the name on the back was not the original owner - and the person had the other name buffed out and hers added. We shall never know.

That opal badge is gorgeous. Does AGD have a collection of rare pins at their HQ? Wonder if they have one like that?

I also found this online:
http://www.archive.org/stream/bullet...luoft_djvu.txt

I found a possible match to the owner's badge, Geer, Charlotte G.,
'03, Stockbridge, Mass. She graduated from Wesleyan in
1903...obviously AGD was founded in 1904. So perhaps she went to
graduate school and that 3 is really an 8? Or maybe she was a charter member of the chapter there and they put her graduation date from college instead of her initiation year? I also google mapped the seller's location to Stockbridge, MA and it's about 14 miles away.