GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS GEMS
A colleague recently sent us a box of vintage jewelry to evaluate. Among the familiar things was an odd duck: a flamboyant hair ornament with dangling green gems, tiny diamonds, and a crescent moon.
I asked, Katrina for help.
She quickly said it was an aigrette. Its sweeping lines suggested Victorian elegance with a touch of Art Deco. Research suggested possibly a fashionable European headpiece, a wedding adornment, or something with a Ottoman connection. We couldn’t pin it down.
The materials were not promising. The body was 10k gold, which wasn’t exciting. The green stones? tourmaline—beautiful, but relatively modest in price—and the diamonds were tiny.
I initially passed on this beauty because of the inferior gold and common gemstones. We figured it had perhaps $800 in gold, a few hundred dollars’ worth of stones.
But it continued to gnaw at Katrina, our client and my sensibilities: It was simply too beautiful to dismiss.
So, we turned to the great equalizer: auction and after spirited bidding, it brought almost $11,000.
The delighted buyer in London wired the money quickly. Clearly, they saw something great.
Who originally wore it, and for what occasion? We may never know. But its sale offers a useful answer to a question we hear often: “What’s it worth?”
Materials are only part of that equation. Design, workmanship and the desire to own something extraordinary count, too.
Whether this aigrette is worn again or displayed in a museum, even with only 10k gold, some things deserve a future beyond the melting pot. (As an aside, every woman tried it on, with one saying she never felt so beautiful.
