Kathy Flood - Warmans Jewelry: Identification and Price Guide

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2009937514

ISBN-13: 978-1-4402-0801-0
ISBN-10: 1-4402-0801-8

Cover Design by Katrina Newby
Designed by Heidi Bittner-Zastrow
Edited by Mark Moran

Printed in China

On the cover

Top, left to right:

Floral brooch, 18k and 14k gold, brilliant-cut diamonds measuring approximately 1.00 mm each, weighing approximately 2.65 carats total. $2,684

Photo courtesy Leslie Hindman Auctioneers

Geometric ring, free-form Southwestern turquoise and coral inlay, bezel-set in sterling silver, signed CP (possibly for Navajo Indian artist Calvin Peterson), ring from estate of Mrs. Frank Lloyd Wright, date unknown, 1 3/4 height and width. $1,500

Jewlery courtesy Kathy Flood

Ear clips, ornate embellishment, pearls, purple poured-glass tassels, Gripoix for Chanel, stamped Chanel. $610

Photo courtesy Leslie Hindman Auctioneers

Bottom, left to right:

Floral clusters collar, red poured glass, rhinestones throughout, 1970s, Gripoix for Chanel, stamped Chanel. $6,710

Photo courtesy Leslie Hindman Auctioneers

Bracelet, 18k yellow gold, rubies and diamonds, six old mine-cut round diamonds totaling 3.00 carats, 12 4.00mm x 3.00mm oval rubies, 63.2 grams. $5,148

Photo courtesy Alderfer Auction & Appraisal

Warman's

JEWELRY

Fine & Costume Jewelry 4th Edition

Kathy Flood

IDENTIFICATION & PRICE GUIDE

OTHER FINE TITLES IN THE WARMANS LINE

ANTIQUES & COLLECTIBLES PRICE GUIDE 2011 44TH EDITION

BARBIE DOLL FIELD GUIDE 2ND EDITION

BUTTONS FIELD GUIDE

CIVIL WAR COLLECTIBLES 3RD EDITION

DEPRESSION GLASS 5TH EDITION

HANDBAGS FIELD GUIDE

MCCOY POTTERY COMPANION 2ND EDITION

MODERNISM FURNITURE AND ACCESSORIES

PEZ FIELD GUIDE 2ND EDITION

ROOKWOOD POTTERY

SHOES FIELD GUIDE

STERLING SILVER FLATWARE 2ND EDITION

U.S. COINS & CURRENCY FIELD GUIDE 3RD EDITION

U.S. STAMPS FIELD GUIDE

VINTAGE QUILTS

VINTAGE JEWELRY

WATCHES COMPANION

WORLD COINS FIELD GUIDE

FOR THESE AND MORE GREAT TITLES, VISIT SHOP.COLLECT.COM.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

This book is dangerous ...

So, youve been warned.

Something in it will seduce you. Something new will catch your eye and cast a spell. Youll fall madly in love, be a goner, besotted all over again where you least expected it. At least I didnt expect it to happen where it did.

Ive always loved costume jewelry, but what began to grip me, to grab me by the wrist and lead me into a new world of wonder, was the sudden realization that all those fine gems and metals come out of the earth. I actually pictured them for the first time, in all their splendid colors and textures, layering the planet in turquoise, jade green, ruby red, veins of silver, a precious subterranean parfait. Aquamarine, like frozen water; moonstone lakes, lustrous lunar labyrinths seemingly dripped from the heavens and now buried beneath the third rock from the sun.

Someone should publish childrens pop-up books in which you lift South Africa and see sparkling diamonds, uncover Nevada and discover veins of turquoise, peek into poor Burma and find the fiery glow of rubies. (World geography class in sixth grade would be much more spellbinding if it led with precious-gem exports in pop-up books rather than bauxite and iron ore. At least girls might pay more attention.) Realizing planet earth is at its heart one big precious gem was my own full-blown environmental appreciation moment albeit rife with absurdity, since jewelrys all about excavation and mining, carving those lusted-for riches in gems and minerals from their natural, terrestrial birthplaces.

Collar, semi-precious stones, 1980s, signed, Iradj Moini. $3,500

Jewelry courtesy the Barbara Berger Collection

Some of the great artists who designed jewelry used precious gems and metals, which surprised me. Why would they, I wondered? It seemed so bourgeois. I had come to associate diamonds and gold, platinum and emeralds with advertising hype and longed-for social status. For me, it was all a huge turn-off. I thought I was extremely mature about it, but maybe the opposite was true. Instead I dwelled, happily ensconced, in the fascinating world of costume bijoux, where metal was mostly base and stones were always fake. But I loved living there because that universe was about artistry and history, imagination and mystery. It felt like the best address.

I still love it there, but now Im more bicoastal, and one abode is located underground. I understand those artists now and everyone who digs canary diamonds or craves chrysoprase. The new digs are crazy with color and flash, although admittedly the paint and cost of living are much higher.

Things change. Everything evolves. In the lives of jewelry collectors, they travel from state to metaphorical state, loving where they are at the moment: from mountains of glitter to woodlands to plastic coasts and then on to new horizons, exotic locales of pearls, platinum and pink tourmaline. No one knows what will do it, what will blindside them around the next corner: seeing the kunzite ring Jack gave Jackie; finding old rock crystal in a Deco masterpiece so delicious you could lick it; loving the sound of Bakelite bracelets the first time two carved bangles klonk against each other on a wrist; gazing at green so gorgeous on Angelinas elegant arm, you cant remember any shade as beautiful since you were a kid and saw Kryptonite for the first time.

For my fellow aficionados oflapidary finery, six words:When life is cruel, buy jewels.

Kathy Flood

A little girl could never grasp (could she?) the passion Elizabeth Taylor had in her heart for the Burton diamond, or the great lust she exhibited for gemstones in general. And yet how far removed from such desire is that little girl really, sitting on a grassy hill in summertime, alone or with a boy, making clover chains to decorate herself, draping her neck with floral torsades, crowning herself with a dandelion tiara? Later in the day, perhaps theyll go for candy and shell pop a quarter in a machine and pray hard she gets the plastic case containing the gaudiest ring behind the glass, the one in garish lollipop colors. When they get ice cream sundaes on a hot afternoon, she feels fetching in layers of her mothers old pink pastel pop beads, making her a mini-Chanel, a latter-day flapper. That year for her 10th birthday, a grandmother or great aunt surprises her with a birthstone. She studies the sparkle and admires it on her ring finger.