Tiffany & Company South American Gemstones in Gold Settings
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GUEST:
My paternal grandmother was able to travel the world a whole lot during her lifetime and loved to bring back little mementos from her travels. These I believe came from Brazil as rough-cut stones, which then she brought home to have set.
APPRAIRSER: Do you have any favorites?
GUEST:
I like the... I think it's an aquamarine, it's the blue one.
APPRAISER:
Your grandmother brought obviously South American gemstones, and they're of varying qualities. They're not exactly the top drawer on the amethyst, there's some shading in there. There's some vacancy of color. But the good news is that she brought them to the best place to set them. What year did she bring them?
GUEST:
They were in sometime in the 1950s.
APPRAISER:
This is good news, this is very good news. These were set by Tiffany and Company. Walter Hoving was a businessman who took over as president of Tiffany and Company between 1955 and 1980. And the first thing he did was sweep out the cobwebs from what had been sort of a failing company. Tiffany was heading into bankruptcy. In the 1950s, Walter Hoving brought in Jean Schlumberger to design jewelry. And these pieces, while they're not signed Schlumberger, they're signed Tiffany 18 karat. They're very typical of the kind of innovative work that Jean Schlumberger was doing. We've got two colors of quartz. We've got the citrine, which is that honey color, amber color. We've got the amethyst, which is the purple color of quartz. And then we have an aquamarine, which is the blue color of beryl. Because they were set at Tiffany and Company, I think what you have here is a collection that's worth a good deal more. The particular upsides are on the less expensive quartz stones-- the citrine and the amethyst. I think the citrine might sell at auction for between $3,000 and $4,000.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
The amethyst, which is set with tourmalines and diamonds, might sell for $5,000 to $7,000. And the aquamarine, which is really quite nice, set with diamonds might sell for $7,000 to $9,000.
GUEST:
Oh, that's really exciting news. She would have been so thrilled.
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