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Tiffany & Company Hardstone Cameo Parure, ca. 1864

Value (2010) | $25,000 Insurance – $35,000 Insurance
Watch  

GUEST:
It belonged to my father-in-law's great-great-grandmother. They lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was given to her on the birth of her son in 1864.

APPRAISER:
And was he the first child, do you know?

GUEST:
Yes.

APPRAISER:
That was not uncommon in the 19th century, and it's still a tradition today that usually, when you have a child, you're given a gift by your husband. This is quite an interesting gift, though, a little more elaborate than what we typically see. What we have here is a beautiful cameo set. And we refer to this type of set as a Parure, meaning that it's a collection of different pieces of jewelry. So we have here a bracelet, earrings, a brooch. There's another brooch down here as well. On the ROADSHOW, we see many cameos.

GUEST:
Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER:
Cameos are carved either out of shell or out of stone. The stone is much harder, and so the more beautifully articulated the stone cameos are, the more valuable they are. And with most cameos, you get that side profile of the figurine itself. What's unique about this is the absolute thickness and dimensional quality of these particular cameos. When you look at a side view of this, you can really see how thick the material was here. This is all one stone, and it was a banded agate, so the bottom layer was a sort of grayish material, the middle layer was this white, and they carved the white away to expose the contrasting background and also to create the detail of the portraiture. So these very large three-quarter portraits are really quite unique.

GUEST:
Oh, really?

APPRAISER:
The other thing that's nice about this is that if we look in here, we see that the retailer was Tiffany & Co. And based on the address of Broadway, combined with the year date that we know that this was, this was a piece that was retailed by Tiffany. It was not a piece that they themselves made.

GUEST:
Right.

APPRAISER:
It was probably purchased in Italy and then re-retailed through the store. Now, in terms of who actually made the set, that's unknown. Although we know based on the carvings and the type of gold work, it is Italian. It's not signed, and that's very typical of jewelry from this period, which is the 1860s, 1870s.

GUEST:
Okay. I wondered if this was 18-karat gold?

APPRAISER:
This particular gold value here is 14 karat.

GUEST:
14, okay.

APPRAISER:
The other thing about the piece here is the cuff buttons. Ladies actually wore cuff buttons in the same way that men wear cufflinks during this period. But what happened was, I think they didn't like them as cuff buttons. So somewhere later in the 19th century, they created the bar pin. But these bottoms here were actually cuff buttons.

GUEST:
Oh, okay.

APPRAISER:
Have you ever had the item appraised?

GUEST:
Once at a local antique show, and all they could say was, "Oh, this is priceless," and so they never put a dollar figure on it.

APPRAISER:
So they weren't willing to quite commit to a price. You know, it's understandable. It's not something that most people are familiar with. A set of this scale and magnitude, I would say for insurance purposes should be somewhere between $25,000 and $35,000.

GUEST:
Okay. (chuckling): Mmm, great.

Support provided by: Learn more

Appraisal Details

Appraiser
Peter J. Shemonsky
Jewelry
Heritage Auctions
San Francisco
Appraised value (2010)
$25,000 Insurance – $35,000 Insurance
Featured In
San Diego, Hour 1 (#1504)
Event
San Diego, CA (June 12, 2010)
Category
Jewelry
Period
19th Century
Form
Bracelet , Brooch , Cameo , Cufflink , Earrings , Pin
Material
Agate , Gold , Stone

Executive producer Marsha Bemko shares her tips for getting the most out of ANTIQUES ROADSHOW.

Value can change: The value of an item is dependent upon many things, including the condition of the object itself, trends in the market for that kind of object, and the location where the item will be sold. These are just some of the reasons why the answer to the question "What's it worth?" is so often "It depends."

Note the date: Take note of the date the appraisal was recorded. This information appears in the upper left corner of the page, with the label "Appraised On." Values change over time according to market forces, so the current value of the item could be higher, lower, or the same as when our expert first appraised it.

Context is key: Listen carefully. Most of our experts will give appraisal values in context. For example, you'll often hear them say what an item is worth "at auction," or "retail," or "for insurance purposes" (replacement value). Retail prices are different from wholesale prices. Often an auctioneer will talk about what she knows best: the auction market. A shop owner will usually talk about what he knows best: the retail price he'd place on the object in his shop. And though there are no hard and fast rules, an object's auction price can often be half its retail value; yet for other objects, an auction price could be higher than retail. As a rule, however, retail and insurance/replacement values are about the same.

Verbal approximations: The values given by the experts on ANTIQUES ROADSHOW are considered "verbal approximations of value." Technically, an "appraisal" is a legal document, generally for insurance purposes, written by a qualified expert and paid for by the owner of the item. An appraisal usually involves an extensive amount of research to establish authenticity, provenance, composition, method of construction, and other important attributes of a particular object.

Opinion of value: As with all appraisals, the verbal approximations of value given at ROADSHOW events are our experts' opinions formed from their knowledge of antiques and collectibles, market trends, and other factors. Although our valuations are based on research and experience, opinions can, and sometimes do, vary among experts.

Appraiser affiliations: Finally, the affiliation of the appraiser may have changed since the appraisal was recorded. To see current contact information for an appraiser in the ROADSHOW Archive, click on the link below the appraiser's picture. Our Appraiser Index also contains a complete list of active ROADSHOW appraisers and their contact details and biographies.

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