Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to Curious Objects brought to you by The Magazine Antiques.
Speaker: I'm Ben Miller.
Speaker: Jewelry can be among the very most intimate and personal of objects.
Speaker: It's made to be worn on your body.
Speaker: Often it's made out of the most precious materials from silver and gold to gemstones.
Speaker: And it's arguably the very oldest or certainly among the oldest categories of collectible with jewelry found in Neanderthal sites as far back as 115,000 years ago.
Speaker: So it's deep in our bones.
Speaker: And I want you, dear listener, to think for a moment about a piece of jewelry that you care about.
Speaker: Maybe it's a wedding ring.
Speaker: Maybe it's a pair of earrings you bought on a family trip or a necklace your mother gave you.
Speaker: It could be a pair of cufflinks that you pull out for a special occasion, or a belt buckle, or a tie pin.
Speaker: Maybe you're even wearing it right now.
Speaker: So, now that you have that object in mind, think about where that piece came from.
Speaker: How you first encountered it, what you love about it, and above all, what does it represent for you?
Speaker: Whatever that is, just keep that piece in mind as you listen to this episode, because today we're going to be talking all about personal connections with jewelry, how these objects can tell stories that transcend their period or style or maker and that connects us in the present to our own memories.
Speaker: And luckily, I have the perfect guest to do that with.
Speaker: I am joined today by three members of a club of jewelry enthusiasts called GemX.
Speaker: This is an organization dedicated to education and exploration of all things jewelry.
Speaker: It was founded back in 2017, the same year as Curious Objects, actually.
Speaker: And they host terrific events and talks and presentations.
Speaker: And first up is GemX's founder, Lynn Jameson.
Speaker: Hi, Lynn.
Speaker: Hey, Don.
Speaker: Nice to be here.
Speaker: Second is Christine Chang, a GemX Core member and director at the jewelry gallery, Simon Teagle.
Speaker: Welcome, Christine.
Speaker: Hi, great to be here.
Speaker: And last but not least, another GemX Core member who longtime listeners will remember, Levi Higgs, archivist at the jewelry firm David Webb.
Speaker: Levi first came to Curious Objects years ago to tell us about that illustrious company.
Speaker: Welcome back, Levi.
Speaker: Hey, thanks for having us.
Speaker: I'm so happy to have you all here.
Speaker: And each of you has a terrifically interesting piece to tell us about today.
Speaker: But let's help listeners get to know you first with a few rapid fire questions.
Speaker: Are you ready?
Speaker: We're so ready.
Speaker: Bring it on.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: What, and I want to start with you, Lynn.
Speaker: What is your first clear memory of a piece of jewelry?
Speaker: I love that question because my first memory of jewelry is...
Speaker: very, very vivid from the standpoint that I couldn't quite take it off of someone.
Speaker: It was my grandmother's jade bangle.
Speaker: And for those of you who know, in China, where I was born, jade bangles are given to women to ward off evil spirits and they wear them all the time.
Speaker: They're made so you grow into them.
Speaker: So they don't come off the wrist easily.
Speaker: Or at all, actually, as I found out.
Speaker: And I remember probably being four years old and she always had it on and I would spin it around her wrist a lot.
Speaker: And I always try and yank it off.
Speaker: And she thought it was hysterical, but it frustrated me to no degree.
Speaker: And when she passed a few years, she gave me the bangle that I still hold near and dear, but it is a memory that I will never forget for how special and personal jewelry can be.
Speaker: Wow, that's so precious.
Speaker: Christine, what's your earliest memory of jewelry?
Speaker: I do remember my first trip to London and going to the Tower of London and
Speaker: seeing the Royal collection, the crown jewels and being very impressed and not being able to move and just kind of taking it all in.
Speaker: So that's kind of my first big girl jewelry memory.
Speaker: How about you, Levi?
Speaker: I'm going to stick true to the very first thing that popped in my head when you asked this question and it's a little ridiculous, but stick with me.
Speaker: It's right around Halloween.
Speaker: So it's kind of topical.
Speaker: Um, the Mary Kate and Ashley movie, double, double toil and trouble, which is a witch themed movie.
Speaker: And the whole conceit of the movie is about this magical gemstone necklace that a witch has, it's called the moonstone.
Speaker: And it's this big glowing green gem that like traps people in the netherworld of the mirror.
Speaker: And it was very powerful.
Speaker: And it was the whole thing about the movie to like get the necklace and save the good witch that's been trapped.
Speaker: And I don't know, I think about jewelry a lot to the lens of fiction.
Speaker: And it's kind of funny that that was literally the thing that sprung to mind.
Speaker: But, you know, whether it's Indiana Jones, like grabbing jewels or Goonies with the gemstones in the bag at the very end, like it's kind of always been for me, movies and books and books.
Speaker: kind of the fantastical thing that comes to mind when I think of like first jewelry memories.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: We're going to take this in the same order, starting with you, Lynn.
Speaker: What's the most valuable piece of jewelry you've ever touched?
Speaker: So my big girl moment, borrowing Christine's words, was the Elizabeth Taylor auction preview.
Speaker: I think it was in Christie's.
Speaker: probably over 10 years ago now, but I was working at Wall Street at the time.
Speaker: So I remember having to sneak out during my like 33 minute lunch break, running over from Morgan Stanley to Christie's and begging them to let me hold like a piece of jewelry.
Speaker: And they sort of took pity on me because I just looked so desperate probably, but I did get to touch the Peregrina Pearl, which I,
Speaker: I think I saw after went for 11 and a half million or something.
Speaker: It was the most expensive pearl ever sold.
Speaker: And yeah, it was just so magical to sort of see it right there.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Top that, Christine.
Speaker: it would probably be some like colored diamond, you know, some pink, big diamond.
Speaker: But, you know, recently I previewed the Sotheby's collection, the Austrian Royal Jewels.
Speaker: And so that certainly I'm sure once we get the results of those next week, something in there will be highly valuable, but.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely getting up into the 750.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: How about you, Levi?
Speaker: The thing that sprung to mind was from a 2017 Sotheby's auction preview.
Speaker: It was the Donner's Mark diamonds.
Speaker: And there were two of them.
Speaker: It was like a big pear-shaped yellow and a big sort of cushion cut.
Speaker: And they were kind of a pear...
Speaker: And just having both of them in my hand at the same time, it like filled my entire poem with these antique diamonds that were just humongous.
Speaker: And it was kind of gobsmacking to me at that point to be like, wow, I'm fondling these humongous antique diamonds.
Speaker: And it felt very, I don't know, sort of powerful in that moment.
Speaker: And they sold for millions, but I don't know exactly where it rates on the scale of everything else I've ever touched.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, if you're not bidding on it, it's hard to remember exactly how much it went for.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Where should people wear jewelry that they usually don't?
Speaker: Oh, like a place or like somewhere on their body?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, I meant as a place, but if you want to talk about belly button rings, go for it.
Speaker: Well, the joke I always make is like, you know, if someone's wearing something fabulous and huge and it's got an interesting story or it's a huge diamond, I'm like, oh, you know, going to the grocery store, picking the kids up, like good for you.
Speaker: Like kind of making a joke about wearing something like that casually, but yeah.
Speaker: I guess I say, why not?
Speaker: If something's like really integral to your persona and what you want to wear and usually wear, then why not wear it everywhere?
Speaker: Grocery store is pretty good.
Speaker: I like that one.
Speaker: What's a mistake that you've made in the jewelry world that perhaps you regret or perhaps you learned something from?
Speaker: Too many to think of is more the line of
Speaker: I think I would say that because it came out of finance and into jewelry, I did look at jewelry through too much of a precious lens, I would say, in the beginning, where I didn't really appreciate that so much of what jewelry means to people is the story or the sentiment and the feeling.
Speaker: And I think in the beginning,
Speaker: It was really just like sticker shock from, wow, it costs that much.
Speaker: That really was my hurdle to get over.
Speaker: And I think that is true for a lot of people, too.
Speaker: We hear a lot of people who come to us through Jemak say, wow, there's just this intimidation factor with what jewelry can cost.
Speaker: And as a hurdle, you really have to dig to get over it and to realize that precious, quote unquote, in jewelry can
Speaker: both mean that it is an actual rare commodity or it can just mean it's a story that only you have or only you know or a gemstone that's so special because it has inclusions or something where it's not necessarily the monetary value.
Speaker: But I think I wish I had learned that sooner.
Speaker: And now that I do know that, it makes jewelry so much more interesting.
Speaker: I wouldn't say it's really a mistake, but I've definitely learned
Speaker: to not be so trigger happy on something.
Speaker: If I instantly have a, like, I need this, I want to buy this.
Speaker: Like I try to make myself sit on it for a good while just to like really think about it, make sure I actually want it.
Speaker: I've had a few things I've purchased that I,
Speaker: wanted really quickly, but then never wore or just sort of sat there.
Speaker: It satiated an immediate need, but then it was not actually something that I needed or utilized as much as I thought I would.
Speaker: So I suppose I've learned to build in the time to really seriously consider things that I will wear, won't wear, that kind of thing.
Speaker: Your belly button rang later.
Speaker: Exactly that.
Speaker: It never gets worn.
Speaker: Yeah, bear in mind, this is a G-rated podcast, so we're not going to go anywhere south of the belly button.
Speaker: But I'm curious what I asked about the most valuable jewelry that you've handled, but what about the least valuable or least expensive jewelry that you love anyway?
Speaker: I can start with this one.
Speaker: I try and always wear the necklaces that my kids make.
Speaker: And it varies from polymer clay to a seashell, not even with a drilled hole, but with like a hot gun attaching the piece of string to it or basically anything that catches their eye.
Speaker: But I love mixing it with
Speaker: things that maybe are a little more refined than that.
Speaker: And it always makes them happy to see it on.
Speaker: It's not a candy ring then.
Speaker: I was thinking ring pop, but you know, I'm not going to throw that in there as a potential.
Speaker: Too late.
Speaker: We've got that on tape.
Speaker: What's your favorite museum to visit?
Speaker: My favorite museum to visit is probably Noia Gallery, just because it's so intimate and beautiful.
Speaker: And it has kind of this, I don't know, allure of someone's home, at least on the first floor, once you get up there and it's all the wood paneling and the, you know, the hush of Fifth Avenue is sort of out there.
Speaker: They have a great Wiener-Werksstaat jewelry collection, which, you know, is great when it's on display.
Speaker: The cafe is wonderful.
Speaker: So there's a lot going for it.
Speaker: Any other competition?
Speaker: What are some good museums for looking at jewelry?
Speaker: The VNA, the Met has decent jewelry sort of sprinkled all around.
Speaker: The Museum of Arts and Design has all the drawers of jewelry and the Musée d'Art Decoratif in Paris has a tremendous jewelry gallery.
Speaker: I love their Art Nouveau display in Art Deco.
Speaker: It's absolutely killer.
Speaker: Don't forget the Apollo Gallery at the Louvre.
Speaker: Oh, thank you.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: right?
Speaker: At the Louvre with the Royal, the French crown jewels.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Levi, you already preempted this question with your Mary-Kate and Ashley reference, but I'm curious what movie you think has the most interesting depiction of jewelry or TV show.
Speaker: Another answer I always talk about with jewelry and movies is vertigo because the necklace is literally the whole point of his like realization that it's, it was the same woman and it connects to the crime and, um,
Speaker: I don't know, the sort of flashbacks he has of like the painting and getting the necklace and wearing the necklace then with the black dress.
Speaker: Like it's just so good, this head rush moment.
Speaker: And it's a beautiful film anyway.
Speaker: So I always say vertigo.
Speaker: I'm going to go a little more lowbrow from that.
Speaker: But we recently just did this whole talk on jewelry in Bridgerton, which I absolutely love, the period of Georgian jewelry and paste jewelry and that these jewels were made to sit by candlelight and shimmer in the night.
Speaker: I went back and I used it as an excuse to rewatch all the Bridgertons.
Speaker: And now I've noticed that the jewelry in the last Queen Charlotte was made by Larkspur and Hawk, which is one of our favorite New York based
Speaker: jewelry companies with Emily Satloff.
Speaker: And I just love how she takes the era and she makes it modern into a modern day collection.
Speaker: And that it's featured on a very binge-worthy Netflix show is all the better.
Speaker: Love that.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Are you ready for a round of overrated, underrated?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I'm just going to list a few things and you can tell me whoever speaks up first, whether it's overrated or underrated costume jewelry.
Speaker: Underrated.
Speaker: Underrated.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Definitely underrated.
Speaker: Why is costume jewelry underrated?
Speaker: Because there's such an art to it and it can be cheeky and fun and it doesn't have to be serious.
Speaker: And often in certain periods, costume jewelry is made just as well, if not better than fine jewelry.
Speaker: There's sort of a whole, I don't know, academia to it if you really wanted to get into it, like Miriam Haskell, Kent Shire sells great costume jewelry.
Speaker: There's a nice piece of costume jewelry at Shrub Soul.
Speaker: Oh, exactly.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: It's out there.
Speaker: You got to come see it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Buying at auction, overrated or underrated?
Speaker: I would say properly rated.
Speaker: A good answer.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That's where my mind was going to.
Speaker: It's just rated.
Speaker: It's rated.
Speaker: Correctly rated.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Ancient Roman jewelry.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: Overrated?
Speaker: No, I don't know.
Speaker: I think there's a lot of people who are referencing ancient jewelry these days, which I love.
Speaker: I think everyone who does it does it differently, and I like that.
Speaker: But maybe the actual ancient Roman jewelry that's on display in museums is sort of not what you'd want to wear and buy.
Speaker: It's nice to see it in a museum, but it's not like...
Speaker: wearable or collectible in the same way that these modern jewelers are doing the work.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: What about Masonic jewelry?
Speaker: Underrated if you're talking about Masonic lockets, like those are cool.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I feel like if someone did a modern version of that, it would blow up and be like the new foundry or something.
Speaker: Don't, I mean, maybe they're going to take that idea.
Speaker: Who knows?
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: Well, now you can play royalties.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: The little puzzle balls that unfold to a cross and then have the, you know, symbols.
Speaker: Those are cool.
Speaker: And we had one that was a star that was, you know, when it was folded up, it was just like a little cone.
Speaker: And then the,
Speaker: Once you unfolded it, it was a star.
Speaker: It was cool.
Speaker: I could definitely see that being spun off these days.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Next up, the Alhambra pattern from Van Cleef and Arpelt.
Speaker: I think it's a classic.
Speaker: I mean, you see it everywhere, but it's a classic for a reason.
Speaker: People look good in it.
Speaker: I'm going to say properly rated.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker: I think their variations are interesting enough that it keeps iterating and they don't look bad on anyone.
Speaker: I've seen everyone carry it off and they always do so well at auction.
Speaker: So properly rated.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Here's one for you, Levi.
Speaker: Men wearing brooches.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: I mean, hashtag the brooches back is, is still a thing.
Speaker: And Frank Everett's Sotheby's for the boys thing just happened.
Speaker: Like brooches are on trend.
Speaker: I I'm, I'm fine with men wearing brooches.
Speaker: I think it's overrated when people on like E red carpet coverage are like men wearing brooches.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: Like it's something new.
Speaker: I mean,
Speaker: it's maybe newly talked about and that's kind of annoying, but the actual act of a man wearing a brooch.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: We love it.
Speaker: We love, love underrated.
Speaker: Underrated.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely underrated.
Speaker: I just don't see that many brooches made in new collections.
Speaker: If you want to find brooches of good quality, you have to go vintage.
Speaker: And so I definitely say underrated because I think there's so much room for modern designers to really take brooches to another level.
Speaker: Yeah, there's plenty of contemporary designers who don't even touch broaches as the category.
Speaker: And there's so many people who I would buy a cool broach from.
Speaker: So I don't know if there's a huge like client base and they're all women necessarily buying rings and bracelets and earrings, like they could buy their husband a broach for going out.
Speaker: Like, why not?
Speaker: Or it's the ultimate like shareable jewel because
Speaker: You can wear it one night.
Speaker: I can wear it one night.
Speaker: It's perfect.
Speaker: You can buy it for yourself through him.
Speaker: That's a handy trick.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: What about women wearing cufflinks?
Speaker: I mean, give me like a Marlena Dietrich moment and we can talk, but otherwise, meh, overrated.
Speaker: Overrated.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Shots fired.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Anyone else?
Speaker: Come on, help me out here, ladies.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: I think I'd rather take a pair of cufflinks and make them into a pair of earrings just to elevate them a bit and wear them higher.
Speaker: I personally don't wear that many cuffed shirts and I'm always jealous of seeing the cufflinks display at jewelry stores because there's so much cufflinks
Speaker: good spines and high quality jewels in there that people aren't going for.
Speaker: So I would say underweighted from the sense that women need to find other ways to wear them besides just as cufflinks.
Speaker: I'm on board with like buying cufflinks and turning them into something else like little stick pins or a ring or earrings.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Totally.
Speaker: Can we just like build a tiara that you can stick to cufflinks through at the top or something?
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Tiara frame built to receive pairs of cufflinks.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: You heard it here first, folks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we'll be back with Lynn, Christine, and Levi in just a moment to hear about some pieces that they have had special personal relationships with.
Speaker: First, just a couple of reminders.
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Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: We have images, of course, as we always do at themagazineantiques.com slash podcast.
Speaker: And you can reach me on Instagram at Objective Interest or via email at curiousobjectspodcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: I love reading your emails and I'm proud to say that I almost always respond.
Speaker: So keep those coming.
Speaker: Now, I am so interested to hear from the three of you.
Speaker: You've each chosen a single piece to talk about, and these are all quite different.
Speaker: And I think you each relate to them in different ways as well.
Speaker: So why don't we start with you, Lynn?
Speaker: And first off, for listeners who can't look up a picture right now, maybe they're driving, what does your piece look like?
Speaker: What is it and what does it look like?
Speaker: So the piece I chose to talk about is a brooch, which is one of our underrated jewelry categories.
Speaker: It is a citrine brooch, which actually I think citrine is one of the most underrated gemstones too, that is categorized as semi-precious.
Speaker: At the gem shows, you sort of see them like in huge quantities and most of them are not of great quality, but the really beautiful ones are very saturated.
Speaker: They have this autumnal hue that reminds me of like a nice mug full of apple cider.
Speaker: And earlier this year, Gem X, we had a member who works in the Portuguese Royal Treasury and he invited us to Lisbon.
Speaker: to take a tour with him of the jewels of Portugal.
Speaker: And alongside the Royal Treasury and seeing the Portuguese royal jewels, we got to do a tour of the crown jewelers of Portugal, this company called Leitão and Irmao.
Speaker: Very little known.
Speaker: I had never heard of them before, but our guide, Rui, he was able to take us into their workshop where we saw
Speaker: maybe 50 jewelers, bench jewelers, all sitting there crafting still to this day just this wide array of beautiful silverware, beautiful handmade pearl jewelry and jewelry.
Speaker: just a whole smorgasbord of dining and, and jewels you can wear and everything that I think makes decorative arts truly, truly a family that includes jewelry and decor.
Speaker: And I felt like,
Speaker: At the time, I just completely bonded with this company and this experience.
Speaker: And to me, jewelry is always about that.
Speaker: You sort of get this feeling of, wow, I really feel like I understand the brand and I understand the craftspeople.
Speaker: So the next day we walk into an antique shop in Lisbon and among the many pieces of jewels we saw, we saw a Latow and Hermo citrine brush.
Speaker: It was a pretty big citrine, I would say maybe like 11 or 12 carats and a rectangle cut.
Speaker: And then it was surrounded by little pearls.
Speaker: which later they told me were natural pearls too.
Speaker: This brooch turned out to be from the 1940s and done in something called Portuguese gold, which was 19.2K yellow gold.
Speaker: So it had a slight different sheen from your typical pieces, but I fell in love with it.
Speaker: And in sort of your hunts for jewelry, rarely do I get the closeness of sequencing where you fall in love with something and the next day you see it.
Speaker: This wasn't antique, so I think there was something really special about that excursion and having a piece of jewelry to remember it by.
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Speaker: So you obviously have a tremendous amount of experience with jewelry, with its history, its aesthetics, its production.
Speaker: But when you went into that workshop, did you see anything that surprised you?
Speaker: Yeah, I think it was the timelessness of it.
Speaker: You enter off of a busy street and you go through this little alleyway and it sort of opens into something that literally could be someone's tiny hole in the wall apartment, or it could be this amazing...
Speaker: behind the scenes, Wizard of Oz hole where you peek through and literally they were creating magic.
Speaker: It was all, I didn't see a single computer in the entire workshop and that really blew my mind because in other workroom tours I've gotten,
Speaker: Most of the time, there's a little catting.
Speaker: There's a little AI.
Speaker: People are even Instagramming right from the office.
Speaker: But inside this office, it was really still the old tools that have been passed down from generation to generation.
Speaker: And they were still relying on molds to wax, carve a lot of the jewelry and to cast it.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: It was really cool.
Speaker: And they did this demonstration for us where they melted down gold to make it into something else.
Speaker: And I mean, there was this work man there who didn't have goggles on, had one glove, not even a pair, just like holding this flame torch to like make gold into liquid.
Speaker: And it just, it blew my mind.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Ism, do you wear this when you go out?
Speaker: I do sometimes.
Speaker: I wore it to Jemex event recently.
Speaker: I think me and brooches, like I'm really trying to give them their moment.
Speaker: But at the same time, I get a little worried where I can't feel the jewelry on me directly.
Speaker: So I need to do better.
Speaker: I think this is a good reminder that I need to wear it out a little more.
Speaker: I've seen you wear it on like a belt and that is so chic.
Speaker: I love that use of a brooch.
Speaker: Yeah, it's such a good size and sort of that rectangular shape.
Speaker: I think you could put it on a velvet necklace.
Speaker: You can put it as a belt.
Speaker: I did try my headband idea, but that didn't go so well because it, again, you wouldn't feel it if it fell off too easily.
Speaker: So anyway, though, I'm so in love with this piece.
Speaker: And yeah, the colors this time of the year, it's just so seasonal.
Speaker: And I, you know, maybe during Thanksgiving, I will give it a proper hurrah this year.
Speaker: Love that.
Speaker: I know you've only had it for less than a year now, but do you have an instinct?
Speaker: Is this going to be a forever piece for you?
Speaker: It's definitely a forever piece.
Speaker: I don't have that many...
Speaker: antique pieces where I think could work with so many different things.
Speaker: And I think this is also a very unisex piece.
Speaker: Like I have younger boys where people are always like, oh, are you going to pass jewelry down to them?
Speaker: And I'm like, absolutely.
Speaker: And brooches are just the thing.
Speaker: And it's really about the memory, though.
Speaker: I think
Speaker: The Portugal trip was just so special to me that this piece I hope I can keep forever just as a memory of the trip.
Speaker: Christine, what have you got for us today?
Speaker: My story also relates to a faraway land.
Speaker: We go back to London.
Speaker: Simon used to participate in the Masterpiece Fair,
Speaker: which unfortunately has been canceled.
Speaker: But one of our favorite traditions in going to London was browsing the Portobello market Saturday mornings before the show.
Speaker: So we'd wake up and you have to get that, you know, people get there really early.
Speaker: I think we would try and get there at seven and, you know, think like the early bird had already caught the worm.
Speaker: That's rough with the time change too.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: And, you know, imagine going to the flea market before going to work a full day at an art fair.
Speaker: It's a lot, but we love it so much, you know, the thrill of the hunt.
Speaker: So yeah,
Speaker: you know, when you're browsing, I browse in two modes, you know, I'm shopping for the gallery, and I'm also shopping for myself, you know, kind of a hazard of being in the business, you're always tempted.
Speaker: But I do have a running kind of wishlist for myself.
Speaker: And
Speaker: Of course, I get prioritized if I find something great.
Speaker: And especially if I can afford it, right?
Speaker: So something that has been on my wish list is as a diehard romantic and someone who likes antique jewelry, kind of the older the better, is a Flemish heart.
Speaker: So these are these really gorgeous pendants that became popular in the 18th, 19th century.
Speaker: They feature a single stone heart that represents Mary's heart.
Speaker: So there is a devotional aspect to it that I don't identify with, but whatever.
Speaker: It's a heart.
Speaker: It's cool.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: So there's the central stone heart, either diamond or in this case, my case, paste.
Speaker: And then it's surrounded by intricate openwork flowers.
Speaker: And then this larger heart shape is either topped with a crown or a love trophy, which is made up of a torch, a quiver, a bow and a laurel.
Speaker: So the one that, the one that I prefer is the love trophy.
Speaker: I just think it's such a cool shape and it represents euros.
Speaker: And that's something that, you know, has endured since the Roman empire.
Speaker: So love that moment.
Speaker: Um, so I found a paste version, something that I could afford and snap that up for myself.
Speaker: Um, and
Speaker: just to fast forward and kind of show how, you know, if you like antiques, if you want to start collecting, don't let price kind of get in the way.
Speaker: You can find things that are within reach.
Speaker: I think now it's been a year or so, we found a diamond version for the gallery.
Speaker: And so that's the second piece in the picture.
Speaker: It is a bit earlier than the one that I found.
Speaker: And, you know, it's a bit, the stones are bigger.
Speaker: You have a lot more stones than in mine, but that's okay.
Speaker: I just thought it was an interesting kind of example to show
Speaker: you know, here's a paste version that I found for a couple hundred pounds.
Speaker: And now here's the diamond version that we're selling for, you know, $11,000 in the gallery and how, you know, I'm lucky to have the access and the eye to find things that I can add to my collection while still promoting and like having, being able to share that story with kind of everyone.
Speaker: Now I'm starting to understand why you said that costume jewelry is underrated.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And, you know, especially with paste jewelry, it was made with the same level of craftsmanship as with diamonds and real quote unquote stones.
Speaker: So, and especially in older jewelry.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: When you saw it, did it immediately click for you?
Speaker: Did you think, okay, this is what I've been waiting for?
Speaker: Or did you have to sit with it as Levi recommended?
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: I am pretty, I am, my senses are pretty honed now.
Speaker: let's say you win the lottery or find yourself, you know, years along in a much more aggressive financial position.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Can you imagine upgrading to the diamond version?
Speaker: Or do you think that the paste one you have has scratched that itch for you?
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: Nope, not scratched it.
Speaker: Yes, I will have diamond versions of everything.
Speaker: And then the paste versions will, as it was in the old days, be the travel versions.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: Smart.
Speaker: All right, Levi, you're at bat.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So my story is sort of a saga and it's, it's ties into my theme of the long game.
Speaker: I always think of jewelry hunting as the long game.
Speaker: I think you should like want something, you should look for it and it should come to you.
Speaker: You should really like
Speaker: put it out into the universe and have it returned to you.
Speaker: And so this is what I did.
Speaker: I had wanted a Van Cleef Zodiac Virgo pendant for a long time.
Speaker: And I like looked on Instagram and looked at auction and talked to all these dealers and sort of, you know, beat the bushes as much as I could.
Speaker: And I think I tried to bid on one at some European auction.
Speaker: And the, you know, you can't,
Speaker: pull the wool over the industry's eyes and of course these things go for a lot of money these days and um it to the the van cleef zodiac series from like the 50s through the 70s and i guess it went beyond the 70s too but um they come in multiple sizes there's sort of like a quarter size one and there's like a jumbo size one that's pretty big like a like a silver dollar sort of size um
Speaker: And I thought that I had wanted the smaller size and I was bidding on it and it was so expensive and I just couldn't do it.
Speaker: But so it didn't happen for me once.
Speaker: And I had used Instagram as sort of this public begging platform to be like, if anyone sees one, please let me know.
Speaker: you know, calling out to the jewelry gods that be that, you know, I'm on the hunt, I'm looking for one.
Speaker: So it kind of became this like years long saga of me, like putting it out there and talking to dealers who constantly got them and, oh, I got a Gemini.
Speaker: Oh, I got a Scorpio.
Speaker: And it was never Virgo because that was sort of the hardest sign to find.
Speaker: Can I just go out on a limb and guess that you're a Virgo?
Speaker: I'm definitely Virgo.
Speaker: Very emblematically a Virgo.
Speaker: And, you know, Virgo as a sign and a symbol, like it's maybe the most widely interpreted sign.
Speaker: Like it's a female form, it's a goddess, it's a maiden, it can be a lot of different things.
Speaker: you know, it can be depicted in a lot of different ways.
Speaker: And sometimes I like the way it's depicted.
Speaker: Sometimes it don't.
Speaker: But the Van Cleef one from the seventies is very beautiful.
Speaker: It's got this unicorn.
Speaker: It's got this maiden in like a toga.
Speaker: She's very like columnar in the middle of it.
Speaker: So it feels very mystical.
Speaker: It's not just like a big woman's face or something kind of strange.
Speaker: Like it has this nice ancient, uh,
Speaker: sort of symbolism that I like.
Speaker: So that's why I was so hyper-focused on this Van Cleef version.
Speaker: Anyway, so years into this hunt for this thing, I got a message from someone who shall remain nameless, but she works at Van Cleef in the heritage department.
Speaker: And
Speaker: She said, I know you've been looking for this.
Speaker: I know that you've been on the hunt.
Speaker: And she had received word that someone in Geneva was trying to sell one to Van Cleef.
Speaker: And Van Cleef did not need it.
Speaker: They already had one or they had plenty in their heritage collection.
Speaker: And they weren't necessarily interested in buying it from this private.
Speaker: And I was like, yes, please put me in touch.
Speaker: So I got sort of this unprecedented direct access to a private person selling one, which is kind of the Holy grail.
Speaker: It's not being marked up by a dealer.
Speaker: It's not in a feeding frenzy at an auction.
Speaker: It was this like perfectly encapsulated moment of,
Speaker: like someone selling it, trying to sell it to me, who is a person interested in buying it.
Speaker: The price was right.
Speaker: The price was great.
Speaker: Honestly, I don't want to say how much, but it was amazing price.
Speaker: Um, and it was a jumbo size.
Speaker: It was like, not what I thought I wanted.
Speaker: I thought I wanted the smaller size, but once I held it and got it, it was like exactly right.
Speaker: The heft is really great.
Speaker: The thickness of the gold is really wonderful.
Speaker: Um, it feels like this ancient coin when I wear it, it's very powerful feeling on my chest.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And I think Christine and Lynn were going to, was it Gemgenev in like November or something?
Speaker: So they were traveling to Geneva.
Speaker: They sort of got to help in the saga and the ushering of this thing back to me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Christine did her smell test in like a lobby of a hotel where she, I was like, is this thing right?
Speaker: Am I getting swindled?
Speaker: And she's like, nope, you're good.
Speaker: It's got the, it's got the right antique smell.
Speaker: It feels good.
Speaker: It looks good.
Speaker: So it was very like, you know, blessed to kind of have these, um, helpers along the way.
Speaker: Wait, Christine, what's the correct antique smell?
Speaker: It's the smell test.
Speaker: It's you're gathering information about a jewel, right?
Speaker: Like you want to feel that it feels correct.
Speaker: You know, that if it has connections or any kind of movement to it, it's fluid, but people forget to smell things, which another one of our friends was wondering if something was gold and I, and I smelled it and I'm like,
Speaker: You smell it and tell me gold does not smell.
Speaker: If a piece of jewelry that someone is telling you is solid gold smells like a handful of change.
Speaker: That's not gold.
Speaker: That's some kind of base metal.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So I always smell things.
Speaker: And also if you're telling me that something is a hundred years old and there's no smell to it, which is a different idea from the gold smell, there's no smell.
Speaker: anything to it then that's something that like kind of sets my alarms off but i have a great mental image of you walking around to jewelry booths at a show just picking things up and taking whiffs no shame no she really does she's like a bloodhound i asked specifically for it i'm like are you sure is this thing right she said yes so
Speaker: Amazing.
Speaker: So that's a hot tip.
Speaker: So Levi, now that you got this thing that you were looking for for so long, how does it feel?
Speaker: It feels wonderful.
Speaker: It feels like, it feels like the rarest of the rare thing at the right price that came to me.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Like the, the,
Speaker: the universe aligned and the beam of light hit straight on me.
Speaker: And it was, it was just great.
Speaker: So, you know, Oh, I could sell it for a major profit.
Speaker: I'm not going to, I'm going to keep it forever.
Speaker: It's, it's definitely like pride of place in my jewelry box.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Do you wear it?
Speaker: I do wear it.
Speaker: And I have a lot of friends who are Virgos and I make every Virgo wear it so that it's like gathered all this like Virgo energy.
Speaker: So there's a lot of sort of weird mystical things I have with it, but I'm obsessed with it.
Speaker: So I'm...
Speaker: His fetish is very contagious too.
Speaker: Every time you're around Levi, it's like we all have our zodiac obsessiveness out just channeling this aura that he has every time.
Speaker: Well, most of the time, since you're pretty much always wearing that pendant.
Speaker: I kind of am.
Speaker: I have two, I have two Zodiac pendants.
Speaker: I have my David Webb one that I wear probably every day, just because it's a little smaller, a little lighter.
Speaker: And then the big Van Cleep comes out for sort of powerful moments or events or something.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we have a fair amount of,
Speaker: um gem x core members who also have grade zodiac pendant collections whether they be van cleef or something else so i'm sure somewhere on instagram is floating a picture of like a few of us with like all of our big gold pendants on and together and it's quite quite a moment but um we love them
Speaker: I love that feeling of community, that collecting.
Speaker: I mean, it sometimes strikes people as a very solitary pursuit, but it doesn't have to be that way.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And with Zodiacs, then everyone's after their own one, you know, so there's not like competition or whatever, unless you're both a certain sign.
Speaker: You just can't be friends with another Virgo.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: But so far, nobody's gotten hurt, so...
Speaker: Zodiacs and monograms.
Speaker: We all look out for each other.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Everything else is fair game.
Speaker: This is fantastic.
Speaker: And it's been so wonderful to hear all three of these, these very personal stories about your relationship with a piece of jewelry.
Speaker: I just want to ask before we go, because these are all pieces that you've acquired and
Speaker: And you're all people who look at jewelry all the time.
Speaker: I mean, you look at thousands of pieces of jewelry, I'm sure every month, the vast majority of which you don't have any intention of buying.
Speaker: How is it different to look at a piece that you've bought that you own versus looking at a piece that you don't own and that you might never intend to own?
Speaker: It's a great question.
Speaker: I often like look upon something and can, I don't know.
Speaker: It's like, you're chucking it under the chin and being like, you're good kid.
Speaker: You know, you're, you can appreciate the beauty of something and kind of be like, go on, get like, get out there in the world.
Speaker: I love you, but everyone else will love you too.
Speaker: And it's okay.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: but the pieces that are yours, you're like, they're your treasured babies, they're your little pets.
Speaker: It's very Gollum, my precious, if we want to get there.
Speaker: But I don't know.
Speaker: I have like a fondness for the pieces that I look at and I think, wow, you're really good and you're for someone else.
Speaker: You know, you're meant for something else.
Speaker: I think that Levi can relate to this, but sometimes, well, for me,
Speaker: as long as I have footage of it, I feel like I own a bit of it.
Speaker: Like I've had my moment and it's recorded and I can refer back to that video where I've been really thorough and like really like sensuous about capturing everything that I want to remember about it that I feel okay to, yeah, like move it on.
Speaker: That's very true.
Speaker: Yeah, I will agree with that.
Speaker: As the non-Instagram person here, I think with jewelry, you know it's personal to someone.
Speaker: It has a story to tell with someone in the world.
Speaker: in our view, we're like in the age of connectivity where if I see something that I think someone else needs to see, I'm like pinging them and texting them to be like, you have to check this out.
Speaker: And I think a lot of it,
Speaker: you do bond over because then you have a moment for the jewelry, whether they buy it or not, or whether, you know, they end up seeing it and saying, oh, ha ha, that's not for me.
Speaker: It turns into a little wink, wink moment.
Speaker: And there's something about the hunt in jewelry.
Speaker: Listening to all your stories and your great questions tonight, Ben, jewelry is fleeting.
Speaker: If you see it,
Speaker: especially at an antique show or out in a show somewhere, and you don't take advantage of that moment and either buy it yourself or pass it to someone else, that is the universe is probably single singular moment to give it to you.
Speaker: And if you walk away, you're not going to see it again.
Speaker: And I've just had so many moments of the one that got away or the ones that got away that to me, I, I try and really, you
Speaker: at least like hone in on the pieces and you can always resell them if they don't work out whatsoever.
Speaker: But I've had so much not buyers remorse from jewelry that I think I'm conditioned in the other way, or at least to share it with someone if it's truly a high quality piece who can appreciate it and wear it.
Speaker: It's fantastic.
Speaker: Lynn, if listeners are interested in learning more about GemX, where should they go?
Speaker: Oh, well, we are always in the jewelry world.
Speaker: We're easy to find.
Speaker: Easiest would be Instagram, GemX Club, or you can visit our website, gemx.club.
Speaker: We host three events-ish every month.
Speaker: Some are virtual, some are in person.
Speaker: And as I previously mentioned, we're planning lots of fun excursions too.
Speaker: So if you're
Speaker: looking to take a vacation around jewelry.
Speaker: It's something that we're super excited about.
Speaker: Well, Lynn Jameson, Christine Chang, and Levi Higgs, thanks so much for spending time with me.
Speaker: This has been a lot of fun.
Speaker: Our pleasure.
Speaker: Cheers.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Today's episode was edited and produced by Sammy Delati with social media and web support from Sarah Bilotta.
Speaker: Sierra Holt is our digital media and editorial associate.
Speaker: Our music is by Trap Rabbit and I'm Ben Miller.
