GUEST: I bought this bracelet in a little, what I guess I would call bric-a-brac shop in Salem, Massachusetts.
APPRAISER: How long ago?
GUEST: Oh, about ten years ago.
APPRAISER: Do you remember what you paid for it?
GUEST: Not exactly, but probably $900 to $1,000, somewhere in that vicinity, probably.
APPRAISER: I think the first thing you notice is it's just so vibrant, the color of the turquoise. And this happens to be Persian turquoise.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: And they're what we call buff tops, the way that this is just kind of rounded with a little bit of a peak. Persian turquoise, like any other turquoise, has a tendency, especially over a long period of time, from oils in our hands and the environment, to discolor.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: So the first thing I noticed about this is that it's just so vibrant, that robin egg blue that you look for. It's all there; none of it has discolored.
GUEST: So I should keep my hands off of it is what you're saying.
APPRAISER: (laughs) Keep it on your wrist, keep your hands off of it. It's Victorian. We were talking, all my colleagues at the jewelry table, as to where it was made, and initially, we were thinking it was made in England, but when we looked at it and we started looking at the mechanics and the hardware and the way it was constructed, we really believe that it's made in France.
GUEST: Oh!
APPRAISER: The bracelet itself is constructed of 18-karat yellow gold. It's hollow, but even though it's hollow, it's very sturdy because it's thick-walled. In other words, they didn't chintz when they made it. In the center of that star motif, you have an old mine diamond. Then surrounding that center and then again repeated here, here and here, you have rose-cut diamonds. And if you notice, right on the outside of the rose cuts, you got this delicate little line of black enamel inlayed.
GUEST: Oh, I hadn't seen that.
APPRAISER: So it just kind of offsets it. It's all the little attention to the little extra details when they made this that make it so special. Now, you had came in, and I think you just noticed it.
GUEST: Yeah, I did, I never paid attention to that before.
APPRAISER: What did you notice?
GUEST: That there was a hinge.
APPRAISER: What they call a thumbnail. You stick your finger in here...
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: and you pop it open.
GUEST: Look at that.
APPRAISER: And it reveals a locket that's never been used.
GUEST: Never been used.
APPRAISER: Was made to put somebody's portrait, anything that was personal.
GUEST: And I had never noticed that before.
APPRAISER: So you've never opened it before.
GUEST: No, I've never opened it before.
APPRAISER: That's great. I would say, at auction, this would easily be in a range of $6,000 to $8,000.
GUEST: Oh, wonderful! That's amazing.
