Love Token Bracelet, ca. 1860
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GUEST:
Probably about 20 years ago, my husband and I would visit estate sales, and a young man was cleaning out his grandmother's home and my husband has eagle eyes for certain kinds of things. He found this. It was very black looking, so you really couldn't tell what was on the discs, and he gave it to me and said, "You like this?" And I said, "Yeah," and we paid a dollar.
APPRAISER:
Fair price. (laughing) Have you used it?
GUEST:
Oh, I wear it fairly often, yeah. What I do know, there are coins, and some of the coins are U.S. coins, I think there's a Canadian one. They're primarily a coin on one side, and engraved with initials on the other side. There's one coin that is engraved two sides, and some are more worn than others. The oldest one has a date of 1854.
APPRAISER:
It's made out of silver. It's called the love token bracelet. The construction is very archaic. It's a simple strip of silver that's built like a belt, caught in the back with a hasp. So, love token bracelets were popular in the 19th century, and the dates here are 1854 to 1879. But what really drew me to this bracelet is there's one on there that speaks to my history. I'm a Brooklyn girl.
GUEST:
Uh-huh.
APPRAISER:
That is the Brooklyn Bridge. And it's got that very recognizable column here.
GUEST:
Uh-huh.
APPRAISER:
And you can see the river below. It's contemporaneous to the bracelet. The bridge starts construction in 1869, which takes 14 years, ending in 1883. And it was a great marvel of its time.
GUEST:
Uh-huh.
APPRAISER:
Brooklyn is seeing a renaissance. If we went back to Brooklyn, we'd be the oldest two people in the borough.
GUEST:
(laughing) Yes.
APPRAISER:
Love tokens sell for between $65 to $85 apiece. We have nine love tokens here, and I would give the bracelet a normal value at auction of nine times six, maybe $300 to $500, $500 to $700.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
Because of the bridge, because of that one love token here, I wouldn't have any problem giving that an auction estimate of $800 to $1,000.
GUEST:
My goodness. Wow.
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