French Tiffany Clockset

Appraised on: August 4, 2012

Appraised in: Corpus Christi, Texas

Appraised by: Dean Armentrout

Category: Clocks & Watches

Episode Info: Corpus Christi (#1702)

Originally Aired: January 14, 2013

IMAGE: 1 of 2  

Appraisal Video: (1:37)

GUEST: A real good friend of mine and his girlfriend were going down to the Florida Keys, and they couldn't take it with them, and decided to let me hold onto it for a while, and then when he passed away, his girlfriend said he wanted me to have it, so I've had it for about 28 years.

APPRAISER: Wow.

GUEST: The front dial it has Tiffany and Company, and the movement has "Made in France." So I don't know the two, how they relate, and I've never found any information on what it's all about.

APPRAISER: Okay, well, it is most definitely French. The movement is marked "made in France" in English. So that tells you that it could have been meant for export. And Tiffany was a big importer of wonderful items from Europe. But what's one of the more unusual aspects of this is the pedestal. Often they're separated. It's quite obvious that this white onyx and this decorative area here are meant to be part of a set. And while I'm on that subject, I want to point out that this is not cloisonnè, as a lot of people call it, this is champlevè. And the big difference is when they created champlevè, they scooped the brass hollow and melted the enamel into the hollow. As compared to cloisonnè, where they build up the channels and then melt the enamel down into that. We feel that this is probably a brass case, and it obviously had layers of gold on it. And over the years, those get polished off very often by well-meaning house cleaners. In a retail setting, a clock like this would sell for anywhere between $5,000 to $7,000 in today's market.

GUEST: That's good to know.