Grand Old Jewelry at the Rio

By Monica Clare McLaughlin, Heritage Editor -- JCK Online, 5/1/2003 2:00:00 AM

If you're an old-jewelry aficionado, pack your bags for the Rio Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. That's where you'll find the annual Las Vegas Antique Jewelry and Watch Show, running this year from May 29 to June 1, 2003. The show, which last year drew an audience of 3,500, will feature nearly 300 exhibitors showcasing fine antique and estate jewelry, vintage watches, and antique reproduction designs.

This year the show opens one day prior to The JCK Show ~ Las Vegas, allowing buyers and browsers who arrive early to get a jump-start on their jewelry hunt. Here, courtesy of some of the exhibitors, is a preview of the kinds of pieces you'll see at the show.

Art Deco Alert

First published in hardcover in 1985, Sylvie Raulet's Art Deco Jewelry (Thames & Hudson Inc., 2002) has just been released in paperback. Focusing on the simple, geometric style that emerged as an antidote to the flighty florals of the Art Nouveau era, the book is packed with large-scale photographs of jewels, original design studies, and period shots of actresses and models bedecked in Deco. Attention also is paid to the accessories of the age—cigarette cases, boxes, vanity items, and of course, those spectacular clocks that took the art of time to another level.

The text accompanying the illustrations tracks the life of the style, touching on the big names of the movement (Cartier, Van Cleef and Arpels, Chaumet) as well as lesser known but equally talented designers such as Jean Fouquet and Raymond Templier. Also included are biographies of many of the key practitioners of the style as well as a short glossary, making this a coffee-table book with substance as well as style.

From the JCK Archives

July 1942

Effect of War on the Diamond Industry

In this review last year it was stated that the industry had lost its principal processing centers, Belgium and Holland; that the number of countries comprising possible purchasers of cut had been greatly restricted, and that Antwerp and Amsterdam had ceased to be great diamond centers.

In 1941, cutting facilities were still pitifully short, but had been moderately increased. A number of small cutting centers now exist, widely scattered over the world.

Sales of polished stones suffered from the war, but those of the United States—always the industry's premier customer—were large. What the industry lost in sales of cut gems in other parts of the world, it made up in unprecedented sales of industrial diamonds.