Stickpin Collection, ca. 1900

Appraised on: July 11, 2009

Appraised in: Madison, Wisconsin

Appraised by: Adam Patrick

Category: Jewelry

Episode Info: Madison, Hour 2 (#1408)

Originally Aired: February 22, 2010

IMAGE: 1 of 3  

Appraisal Video: (4:16)

GUEST: My husband's mother started the collection. This is basically hers. We've added to it.

APPRAISER: Right.

GUEST: When she passed away, we found them in the safe deposit box and didn't realize there were that many of them. And my husband really liked it, so we decided we would continue the collection.

APPRAISER: Well, it's definitely the largest collection of stick pins I've ever seen in one place. I picked out a few different examples. Most of them are English and American, late 19th, early 20th century. You have an enamel dog here in 14-karat yellow gold. You have gold dog's head here in 14-karat yellow gold. These are both American. This one here, you have an enameled flower with a little central old-mine diamond in the center, and a little enameled lily of the valley stick pin here. Then this piece up here is a diamond-set grouse, which is English, about 1890. Do you have any idea of the values that you have here?

GUEST: I checked online for some of the prices, and when we averaged them out and timed it to how many we had, we figured we would average them to about $200 apiece, which would make it about somewhere between $20,000 and $25,000.

APPRAISER: All right. Well, we came to a price of approximately $500 apiece.

GUEST: Ooh!

APPRAISER: And it's quite a conservative price that we're putting on them.

GUEST: Oh, my!

APPRAISER: But in a retail environment, we give the retail price of around $60,000.

GUEST: Oh!

APPRAISER: There are certainly a few here which are certainly far more than $500. And there are a few, I'm afraid, which are a little bit less.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: But on average, $500 is a conservative price.

GUEST: Oh!

APPRAISER: You like that?

GUEST: Yes! Thank you.

APPRAISER: No, thank you for bringing them in.

GUEST: It's... It's been great fun. My husband will be so excited, and my mother-in-law had such exquisite taste.