Art Deco Jewelry Suite, ca. 1930
GUEST:
I brought some jewelry that was either my great-grandmother's, or my great-great-grandmother's. My great-grandmother was a very prominent woman in San Francisco.
APPRAISER:
I see.
GUEST:
And she was very much involved with the Jewish San Franciscans in the 1800s.
APPRAISER:
Okay.
GUEST:
And I know that they were pretty wealthy people.
APPRAISER:
Do you wear them?
GUEST:
I do, I wear the ring. I wear this mostly when I'm going out for black tie.
APPRAISER:
What we've got is a suite of Art Deco jewelry. This is textbook Art Deco. Very geometric and uniform, platinum and diamonds. A little splash of color, we seem to have a few sapphires in here. The sapphires are probably synthetic. My guess would be is they're made somewhere in the East Coast of the U.S. I didn't notice any marks on any of the pieces. Even though they're not marked, I would bet they're not from the same maker, but definitely from the same era. In the ring, there's a mark that says "plat," which of course stands for platinum. This guy here has some old European cut diamonds in the center that weigh anywhere from about .6 to .9 carats. Not quite a full carat, but a nice size, gives it a great look. And then it's accented by three carats in total diamond weight, aside from the center diamonds. So we got quite a bit of carat weight going in there. For something like this, I would expect an auction estimate to be in the $10,000 to $15,000 range. Very nice piece.
GUEST:
For the bracelet.
APPRAISER:
Just the bracelet alone.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
Great piece, still in excellent condition, which is very important. In the middle we've got a great looking ring, again, Art Deco. And in the center we have an old European cut diamond. It's a nice size, it's about two carats. It's surrounded by single cut diamonds. And a good auction estimate for that would be around $12,000 to $18,000.
GUEST:
Okay. (laughs)
APPRAISER:
A lot of that is based on the center diamond. Of course when you've got a big diamond, that always helps us out here. And last, but certainly not least, we've got the string of pearls with a pendant on it. The center diamond in there is an old cushion cut, it's about three carats. And it's got some old European cut diamonds around it. The pearls do look like they're later, they're cultured. Looks to me actually on the pendant there, this little bail is what we call this where you put it over the pearls. That is an alteration from the original Art Deco piece.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
If you kind of look at it, the scale is a little bit out of skew. And I think a good auction estimate for that piece is going to be about $25,000 to $35,000.
GUEST:
Oh, my goodness.
APPRAISER:
Yeah. Lovely suite you've got there.
GUEST (laughing) Wow. Okay. I'm happy with that.
Appraisal Details
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