Diamond & Platinum Ring, ca. 1960
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GUEST:
My grandmother got married to my grandfather in 1935. My grandfather didn't have a lot of money, and it was just right in the heart of the Great Depression, and he gave her a very, very small diamond in a large ring. She always vowed that she would get a larger diamond. Uh, her father passed, and she had a bit of money. She saved up money for years, and she went to a jeweler in New York City and wanted the biggest diamond that she could possibly get for the amount of money that she had. That's w, what it is. What she told me was, she was terribly embarrassed by her wedding ring. The ring was so small, she didn't want to show her friends. So she ended up getting this, but she never showed this to anyone, either.
APPRAISER:
(laughs)
GUEST:
So she was a very modest person, a wonderful person, and one of my sheroes in life.
APPRAISER:
When did she get this stone?
GUEST:
She got this sometime between the late 1950s and the early 1960s. I got it approximately 1996. After she gave it to me, she explained that the setting wasn't as important to her as the stone. She wanted to have a nice stone.
APPRAISER:
And your grandfather was still alive at that time?
GUEST:
Oh, yeah.
APPRAISER:
Was he aware of this undertaking at that point?
GUEST:
I know when my grandmother confided to me about her wedding ring being too small, he wasn't in the room, and, and, you know, as far as I know, he never knew about it. She kept it in, in, in a, in a little bag, two bags. And, uh, that's the way I kept it, with a safety pin. She had, everything had a safety pin on it. It's only been worn twice in the past 25 years.
APPRAISER:
So you have no idea what she spent in the '50s or '60s when she commissioned the ring.
GUEST:
It was, like, maybe a couple of thousand dollars? I don't know. But I know it was her one big lifetime splurge. She loved the ROADSHOW.
APPRAISER:
Mm-hmm.
GUEST:
(murmurs) And I love the ROADSHOW, and we literally used to watch it together for years. And she was a big fan of, you know, Berj, uh, Zavian.
APPRAISER:
Well, you provided a great segue, because we double-checked that this is, in fact, a diamond, using a machine that's been nicknamed the Berjometer, after Berj Zavian, so it is, in fact, a diamond.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
We, you know, I consulted with my colleagues. We looked at the size. It's around three-and-a-half carats, a little bit more. One would have to take it out of the mount in order to be precise about the weight. The mount is a fairly straightforward mount from that period. It's a good-quality platinum mount. So it's a nice stone. It's got a little color to it, but not a lot. We estimate the color as, like, a K or an L color. It's a pretty clean stone, so it's probably an S.I.1, S.I.2, something like that, with just sort of very, you know, slight visible inclusions. On the sides, you'll see that there's emerald-cut diamonds. Each of them is sort of a relatively small carat weight, so that's not going to add a lot to the value. What they do add is a feeling of importance to the ring. It sort of enhances the whole piece, but most of the value is in the stone itself. We estimate that a retail value is probably at least $40,000.
GUEST:
(softly) What? (breath trembling) (voice breaking) Oh, my gosh, I had no idea. I had no idea. This is the one big thing she wanted in life, and I… Wow, wow. I, I'm shocked– beyond shocked. Oh, she was so good to me and my mom. I can't believe it. It's like she's still up there looking out for us.
Appraisal Details
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