Summary:

Cameo is something really attractive when you give high attention to the small details, the good thing about Cameo that its simple and at the same time beautiful and they are always on style, Abalone, wood, bone, coral, ivory, plastic, glass are materials that can be used to make Cameos.

Molded cameos are usually made of glass.  They usually consist of either one or two colors.  Often the colors are swirled together. Glass cameos are usually quite shiny.  Molded cameos are also molded from plastic. The Wedgwood style cameos were made from plastic.  Plastic makes a terrific imitation shell cameo. Older cameos were often made with celluloid using two colors.  Occasionally, but not very often, natural materials are molded.  One way to tell if a cameo is molded is to look for a roundness in the detail and a lack of sharp and precise lines.  To identify glass cameos look for the presence of mold marks and ridges or dimples on the back.

Shell cameos, it’s very simple and easy to curve it because the shell is very soft, it contains thin concave back, and actually it has 2 different colors, but the coral cameos with 1 single color, but the common thing that it also have a flat back.

Agate cameos are carved with the same technique that shell cameos are carved.  Agate has one main advantage, because the carver is able to see the layers of color from the side and knows that these layers will basically be flat.  Stone is much harder to carve.   A good hard stone cameo is often under carved at the junction where the portrait meets the flat plaque.  At a quick glance stone often looks like an applied cameo, however upon closer examination one can determine it to be stone.

Amber Cameos are rather new to the market place. Amber cameos are carved from natural amber with the reverse intaglios being hand carved.

Practice will make it easier to tell molded cameos from carved cameos:  Usually natural materials are carved, while glass and plastic materials are normally molded but could be carved though not very likely.  Molded cameos can be two colors by the simple device of pouring one color into the mold in a thin layer and then following with a thicker layer of another color.

When buying any type of cameos you should know why are buying it? That means if you are buying cameos to add it to your jewelry and use it, in this condition make sure that you get what your heart falls to. But the other condition if you are buying cameos just because you “Love” it, then determining the value and type of cameos not that important.

And always put on mind that the cameos is a great fashion style and it always moves on with the style.