Antiques Roadshow

GUEST: My sister and I recently inherited some jewelry from my mom.

Her grandparents and great-grandparents had a lot of jewelry.

This piece just kind of caught my eye, I thought it was different.

APPRAISER: were they from?

GUEST: Originally from England, but then lived in Manhattan.

APPRAISER: I love the design of this.

It's just so beautifully perfect.

It's like a North Star, the shape.

It's very simple.

It's platinum.

It has old European cut diamonds.

What you notice about it most are what?

GUEST: The pink pearls.

APPRAISER: So, pink, and what else?

GUEST: And, and the blue.

APPRAISER: And the blue, and the white.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: These are natural pearls.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: This is truly a gemstone of the sea.

Most likely from places like the Persian Gulf.

Natural pearls in white, the bigger they get, the more expensive they are.

But they're a little more common, and I love the fact that they're here.

But two matched pink ones?

Wow.

And that's nature at its best.

And I guarantee you they didn't find two matched pink ones together.

It may have been years before somebody matched those up.

And then the one in the middle.

You know, you see a lot of black ones.

You see ones that are dark, they're gray.

We're out here, and it's not even sunny out, and you see the blue hues?

I mean, it's fabulous.

And then we turn it around, and there's a pin.

So this would've been worn as a pin, which was very common back then.

You pull the pin out and this bail flips up.

This is so you can slim what most likely would've been a thin platinum chain.

You can see the cups, how they took the time, probably an extra day in production or two, to sit there and engrave them, for something that almost nobody's gonna see.

It's probably around 1920.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISAER: Yet it's so contemporary.

I love that-- when jewelry's kind of evergreen, then it just, it's always right.

I really, truly thought that this piece would have a signature, it's that fabulous.

GUEST: No idea who...?

APPRAISER: No idea who made it.

(chuckles) Natural pearls, being what they are, are, are worth more than regular, cultured pearls.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: In these hues, they're kind of special.

The center pearl, that, that beautiful bluish, silvery gray, is seven-and-a-half millimeters.

That's a nice size.

Auction price today would probably be $10,000 to $15,000.

(sputters, laughs) GUEST: Oh, that's pretty good.

(laughing) (laughing) Yeah, wow.

A little bit more than, uh, than I thought.

I thought nothing, but, yeah, that's, that's amazing.

APPRAISER: A retail price would probably be all of $25,000.

GUEST: Wow, wow.

(laughs) Wow, that's amazing.

APPRAISER: You and your sister are gonna have to share it.

GUEST: We're gonna have to fight over it.

(both laughing) APPRAISSER: Oh, you're gonna fight over it.

I said share, not fight!

GUEST: We'll share it, we'll share it.

(laughing) APPRAISER: We'll take turns.