Coro Duette Seahorse Brooch, ca. 1945
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GUEST:
They belonged to my grandmother. She gave them to me.
APPRAISER:
Great. And do you know where your grandmother might have gotten them from?
GUEST:
I have no idea. My grandmother was a floozy. We have no idea where she got them.
APPRAISER:
All right, well, it sounds like your grandmother might have had the personality to wear these wonderful brooches. So, what we have here are rhodium-enamel and gemstone set Duette brooches. A Duette brooch are a pair of brooches that are meant to be worn either separately or together. They're made by Coro, who is arguably our country's largest and most prolific costume jewelry manufacturer from the 20th century. They were founded in 1901 but not branded as Coro until 1943. And it was the Coro company that trademarked the Duette name.
GUEST:
Hmm.
APPRAISER:
In this example here, we have the Coro signature towards the tail of one of the seahorses. It's very faint, but it's a very characteristic C-O-R-O, the name of the company. On the tail of the other seahorse, we have the patent number. And you can see they have dress clip fixtures, or they would have been worn like this with an apparatus to connect them to each other. That's no longer with the brooch, so it's kind of unfortunate it's not a part of them anymore.
GUEST:
Aww.
APPRAISER:
But they could still be worn together like this.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
Duette brooches in this fashion went out of style in about the 1950s when lighter knits came into fashion and you couldn't wear these heavy brooches anymore. So, that really helps us date them to the 1940s period.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
At auction today, I would value these between $800 and $1,000.
GUEST:
Oh, my goodness. Cool!
Appraisal Details
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