Gold & Amethyst Necklace, ca. 1975
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GUEST:
My father gave it to my mother as a birthday present, in... sometime in the early '70s, I believe.
APPRAISER:
Yes.
GUEST:
And she wore it a few times, and then she left it to me, really because I was the only one with the sort of chest to wear it. Thing is, you can't really wear it every day. You really need a ball gown to go with it, and I don't wear a ball gown very often, needless to say. So it sat in a drawer for a long time, and then I swapped out part of it for a puppy.
APPRAISER:
You-- I'm sorry?
GUEST:
I swapped it, part of it, for a puppy.
APPRAISER:
A puppy?
GUEST:
And I thought my mother and father would really approve of the necklace I probably wasn't go to wear to a darling Jack Russell by the name of Max.
APPRAISER:
And how did you get the necklace back?
GUEST:
I... borrowed it back. And I was a bit worried that when I borrowed it back, the gentleman with whom the swap was made might want my puppy back. He's, needless to say, not going to get the puppy back, because I love him far too much.
APPRAISER:
Of course.
GUEST:
And when I heard the ANTIQUES ROADSHOW was coming, I thought this would be a great place to bring it and just find out a bit more about it.
APPRAISER:
Well, when you brought it up to me, I got very excited, because it did look like a jeweler that was named Andrew Grima. He was a British jeweler, making jewelry in London, and basically, he liked to use all of these amazing crystals and geodes. And so he looked at jewelry as sculpture. This particular jeweler, who we have here, from Russell of London...
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
We needed to do some more research on this particular jeweler, but he's definitely a contemporary of Andrew Grima. It's from 1975, which is exactly when Andrew Grima was in his prime. He was using things that weren't necessarily valuable.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
For example, this is just an amethyst geode, and he split it in half to resemble the butterfly wings, embellished it with some tiny diamonds from the top and the bottom, and even made the little antenna, right here, en tremblant. So it trembles when you wear it.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
It's in 18-karat gold. It's truly one of a kind. And you said you don't wear it very often, but we're in Newport. Maybe you should wear it.
GUEST:
Maybe I should wear it.
APPRAISER:
We're in the best place for it, right now.
GUEST:
I'd better find the grand balls to go to in order to wear it.
APPRAISER:
Yes, exactly. There are people that are buying 1970s jewelry. So anything a little different, anything a little bit unusual, or very unusual, we'll call this...
GUEST:
Right. ...
APPRAISER:
is very desirable right now.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
I would say auction estimate would be between $3,000 and $5,000.
GUEST:
That's very nice to hear, and also that makes sense, because I didn't think my father probably went and spent $100,000 on a birthday present.
APPRAISER:
If it was an insurance value...
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
It would be, you know, close to double that.
Appraisal Details
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