Tiffany Sapphire & Diamond Ring & Bracelet, ca. 1950
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GUEST:
This is my grandmother and one of my sisters in a knitting lesson. I know that this ring and bracelet was a gift to my grandmother. She wore it on her engagement finger, as shown in the picture, and then my father inherited it and gave it to me three years ago.
APPRAISER:
Do you know who made the ring?
GUEST:
Tiffany and Company, I believe.
APPRAISER:
Right. The style influencing it is very much retro, World War II period. The ring could have been made a little bit after that into the early '50s. It's got what we call calibrated sapphires, those are those little square-cut sapphires, and then you have old mine diamonds, and then you have the sapphire in the center. We did measurements, and we figured the sapphire to be roughly 1.80 carats.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
It looks to us like it's probably Ceylon. In other words, that would be the origin or the region where it came from in India.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
It's made out of platinum. And it's got these great design elements on the side. If you look at the side of the shank, or the shoulders, you see this little kind of teardrop platinum work and it's got a little fluting. I mean, that just adds to it. They took a little bit of extra time, an extra half a day in the shop, to make the ring extra beautiful. Now along with it-- although I doubt she got this at the same time, it certainly matches-- but you've got a sapphire and diamond bracelet. Again, you have that classic calibrated square sapphires and you have the old mine diamonds, but what's interesting is the metal here is not platinum.
GUEST:
Oh!
APPRAISER:
It's palladium. It looks like platinum, but it's considerably lighter.
GUEST:
Uh-huh.
APPRAISER:
And this was used during the wartime. What's also fun is this is also signed Tiffany and Company. In this bracelet, you have about two-and-a-half carats of sapphires and about a carat-and-a-half of diamonds. In the other piece, we figured 1.80 carats for the center sapphire, and you probably have another carat in diamonds. At auction, the bracelet's $4,000 to $6,000, okay, and then we give you a price at auction for the ring, I would say $10,000 to $12,000.
GUEST:
Really? Seriously. Oh, my goodness! Oh, that's amazing.
APPRAISER:
Is that good news?
GUEST:
Yeah, that is!
Appraisal Details
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