Antiques Roadshow

APPRAISER

Back in 2012, we spent some time in Seattle and I met a lovely lady named Joan, who brought me a necklace that had been in her family for generations. Joan happened to be the first person to come in that morning, walked right up to me at the jewelry table, opened this box, and I'm looking at this magnificent piece going, "Am I dreaming? Am I still asleep?" I was blown away. It was a very special moment.

GUEST

This necklace belonged to my great-grandmother, and she lived from about 1864 to 1926, and I believe at the time they were quite wealthy. They came from northern New Jersey and they actually had a house there that is locally known as Kip's Castle, and I believe the county has just taken it over as a museum.

APPRAISER

In the portrait, your great-grandmother is wearing this particular necklace. I would date it most likely between 1900 and 1908. What we have in the center is a black opal. This makes it a much more expensive piece. Black opal is considerably more rare.

GUEST

Oh, okay.

APPRAISER

The green stones are Russian demantoid garnets. That is the most rare form of green garnet that exists. So this was a very expensive piece when it was made. From an auction standpoint, we can look at this from three different viewpoints. The first would be as a wonderful piece of historic jewelry, it would be $8,000 to $10,000.

GUEST

Oh, my word. Now, if we add in another element, which is the fact that this piece was made by Tiffany, it affects the value. A Tiffany piece would be priced at $15,000 to $20,000. Oh, my word, I just can't believe it!

APPRAISER

We could take it a step further and assign this piece to Louis Comfort Tiffany, and he is known more for his stained glass, but he did also head up Tiffany Jewelers. And with his name attached, the auction estimate on a piece like this can go as high as $30,000 to $40,000.

GUEST

Oh! I can't believe this!

APPRAISER

Now, we have not found his initials on the reverse, so in order to achieve the highest value, we'd recommend that you contact the Tiffany archives.

GUEST

Oh, okay.

APPRAISER

The archives can research the piece. They can date it correctly. They do this for a fee. The archives are based in New Jersey, and the last time I sent a piece there, they charged $1,000 to authenticate it. But when you're talking about a difference in price, it's a good investment.

GUEST

Yes, definitely. She was excited. She asked me what we needed to do to try and accomplish the goal of proving the tie-in to Louis Comfort Tiffany, and I advised her to contact the Tiffany archives and then she followed up with me after she heard from them and they were helpful. They could not find the original artwork in their archive and were nice enough to say "we can't match this piece specifically, but we do know it is a Tiffany and company piece, absolutely." Tiffany archives did extend an offer to Joan to acquire the piece from her and she asked me what would be in her best interest. If you have an outright purchase offer on your particular necklace, it's nice because you can walk away with a cash or check in hand and it's done. Move on. If you're willing to gamble and you have a little time and some patience, taking that same necklace to auction opens the necklace up to bidding competition all around the globe, but Tiffany had also made her a fair offer. I said "well, what if we agree to set the reserve on the piece at their offer price," which happened to be $25,000. "We will extend the estimate to the 30,000 to 40,000 dollars we talked about on the show and let's see what happens." Joan was excited and offered to consign the piece to Heritage, and then it became a research project, pulling up every Tiffany book that we could find, trying to backtrack and research pieces so that we could definitively say, this is a Louis Comfort Tiffany piece. And we were able to borrow the portrait of her great-grandmother, Charlotte. We were able to locate photos of Kip's Castle, which was the family home. It turned out it was a medieval castle, mansion that was built in Essex County, New Jersey. We had details and we could build a story. We romanced the story to help sell the piece because it deserved it. We ended up selling the necklace in 2013. There was a tremendous bidding war. The piece kept going up and up, once it went above and beyond $40,000, $50,000, $60,000, it kept going and I had Joan's phone number on my cell phone, ready to hit send. I was so excited. The piece hammered, which means it sold for $100,000. It was amazing and I hit send on the phone and I got her voicemail. I went "no, where's Joan!" And it later turned out that she and her husband were on a road trip, moving across country and didn't get their messages and get back in touch with me for four days (laughs). And she didn't believe me for a moment, there was a moment of silence on the phone. "Really? What? That's wonderful!" And it just, it made me happy. Realistically, would that piece have a higher auction estimate today? Yes, most definitely. More likely in the $150,000 to $200,000 price range. It's that rare of an item. I think when I look back on my ten years as an ANTIQUES ROADSHOW specialist, this particular necklace by far, stands out in my memory as the greatest piece I have ever seen as a part of this show.