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First Person

Keeping What Lasts — and Selling Aunt Hannah’s Jewelry

Posted January 13, 2009

As the economy continues to weaken in almost every way imaginable, many of us find ourselves making increasingly difficult choices while struggling to get by. We often don’t talk about them, at least with the world outside our families. But we’re making them all the same.

Forget the headlines, the statistics — what’s it really like living in this terrifying new world of ours? It’s a rare privilege to be bringing you this powerful first-person account by Guest Whiner, Penner, whose last article for EconoWhiner, “We Held an Election Here,” explored the view from a battleground state. As you’ll see, she’s a terrific writer. But what we admire most is her willingness to share this painful story and also, to move on:

According to an article I recently read, Bernie Madoff sent “his friends and family packages containing 13 watches, 4 diamond brooches, a jade necklace, two sets of cufflinks, and other jewelry totaling at least $1 million.” Humph. The jade, diamonds, and watches in my basement weren’t worth a fraction of that back in October.

In September I was too often shoving the question of our son’s school tuition to the back of my mind.

Our joint earnings were losing ground with our monthly nut despite my husband’s regular salary.

We kept our eleventh grader in the same prep school because we still hope that investment’s going to get him to college in some way he can afford to sustain, while our college and retirement funds shrivel. We’re explaining this to him gradually, in portions he can digest.

So. In mid-October I looked at the calendar and realized payday arrived after direct-debit-of-tuition day. To my daily list of things-to-do I added call the business office at school to say I ‘d send a check this month — please cancel the debit.

Meanwhile, the local paper ran a full-page ad (rare for any ad there these days) announcing that the local family-run jeweler would soon host an estate buy-back. Roving national buyers host these in small struggling jewelry stores and give the proprietor a cut of the take. I’m friendly with this proprietor, who serves on the board of a local shelter with me; her store is, it claims, the oldest in the U.S., pre-dating Tiffany’s by 50-plus years.

Now this store is about to close — the owner had hoped to hold out till her mother’s death, but the mother holds on while the store cannot. What is the value of jewelry (or pewter baby cups) these days?

I knew it was time to go through Aunt Hannah’s things, the few items we’d taken with us in the car on the 900 mile drive home from her funeral instead of giving them to her church. All the furniture, china, crystal, LPs, the mink coat, liquor, and photos of black politicians went to the church. (Same church where the Obamas visited school children and a food pantry on Thanksgiving 2008.)

Her sterling, her jewelry, her mother’s and mother-in-law’s jewelry, both fine and costume, however, had been waiting about three years now for my attention. We still miss her; it’s emotional. She had style and smarts; she loved our kids the way none of their grandparents had — maybe because she’d wanted kids but hadn’t had any? No, because they clicked, it was personality and character. But I digress.

It was about time, so I spent a rainy afternoon sorting in the basement and then brought upstairs with me a few fancy glove-boxfuls of items for professional assessment. Opera-length white kid gloves that don’t even fit me stayed in the basement along with the hostess diary that listed her guests and what she’d served to Johnny and Eunice Johnson of Ebony Magazine. Swizzle sticks and matchboxes from the original Playboy Club came upstairs to a drawer by the liquor cabinet. We’re not grand, but we like to have fun.

The same day, I phoned the school business office to do my business. The clerk informed me their policy had changed since I’d last made this request. She needed ten business days to cancel the direct debit. Oh, I see. I decided to save a desperate plea for a more desperate day.

The funds wouldn’t be in our bank account though.

It had been a few years since I took a cash advance on the Discover to pay the orthodontist, but I could do this. We keep an emergency account in a local bank. I cleared out most of that in cash. I cynically emailed clients who owe me money, as if they would pay. I saw that the jewelry buy-back event would occur three days before the tuition debit.

Early the morning of the sale, an October sun burned orange and blue onto the rings and watches in the box. But I couldn’t tell if the diamonds were real or worth anything. I’d never seen Hannah wear them either. Her pre-deceased husband’s wedding band, could I measure its sentimental or dollar value? The beads and matching earrings looked like real jade to me; the Mexican sterling bracelets have a chunky timeless panache, but probably little dollar value. I phoned my sister, the Republican accountant two time zones away, for tax advice in case I sold anything.

I researched the prices of gold and diamonds online, learning more than I cared about their descent.

Eighty-nine year-old Hannah and our son adored one another. Her photo regards him skeptically and lovingly from the bulletin board over his desk where he pinned it shortly before her death, where he now battles test-taking anxiety and stereotype threat. She loved me and my daughter, but would she have cared whether we ever wore the watches or served family dinners with the generations-old carving set?

I put everything back into their velvet, satin and faux-leather boxes, and stacked those into crisp shopping bags — the old Marshall Field’s ones wouldn’t survive this occasion. It was time to drive downtown and get a parking spot and a number (dispensed more tastefully than at the deli counter, but there was a line).

Once I had my number, I embraced the proprietor and took my place for a short wait. Business was conducted quickly — no Antiques Roadshow suspense. The young appraiser/buyer respectfully declined even to glance at the jade or the tableware or any sterling. He weighed the wedding bands. He took his time with the diamonds. A cocktail ring I’d never seen on a finger would pay that month’s tuition and address a little credit card debt. Minor rings and watches added up — but to far less than Hannah’s old insurance appraisals had led me to hope.

A filigree bracelet of white gold and diamonds gave the appraiser pause. He admired its workmanship; he got on the phone about it. It’s a hundred years old, a fine piece of eastern European workmanship, he explained. I asked him to give me his highest number — he went back to number-crunching. I phoned my sister.

You see, Hannah married into the black bourgeoisie. My parents still hate that I married a black guy. My sister, like me, is fascinated by our Hungarian, Bosnian, where-is-the-border-this-year heritage. She loves my husband and kids. She bought the bracelet from us at the price the appraiser named. She’ll wear it and explain its origin to partiers at the National Western Stock Show. If we ever want it back, she’ll sell it to us. It’s safe and has developed a kind of meaning.

Meanwhile, at our frugal friendly potlucks and post-Obama house-parties, I trot out Hannah’s immense glass punch bowl. I wear her Mexican bracelets and marcasite cocktail ring. My sister wouldn’t care to attend these house parties; they don’t suit her politics. But she and Aunt Hannah would have talked to one another and liked one another.

That’s my way of keeping what lasts, and if next year I need to sell the punchbowl or the bracelets or change my son’s school, then I can.

The Whiner wants to know: Has your family been forced to make any big sacrifices recently? Do you have your own equivalent of Aunt Hannah’s jewelry waiting in the wings, if necessary?

Reader Comments

  1. Yvonne

    Beautiful story. Thanks Penner, and Thanks Whiner. Strangely enough, I’ve been thinking about doing my own version of this and 1) haven’t really known how to go about doing it and 2) have felt too embarrassed to pursue it. You’ve given me the confidence to move ahead.

  2. Mike

    Yeah. Got to agree. I like the fact that you just did it. That’s the mindset a lot of us are in right now.

  3. Gretchen

    I don’t want this to get lost in the shuffle. It’s too bad to think of that jewelry store going out of business after operating for so long. Penner, I have the feeling that’s kind of emotional too, right? When you’re the friend of a business owner, you get an inside look into whatever he or she is going through.

  4. Crayon

    Penner,

    I really loved your story and that your sister was able to buy the bracelet! I love the style Aunt Hannah had and love for your family. That couldn’t have been easy to take her things out to an appraiser to sell.

    Sorry Hannah didn’t live to see Obama’s upcoming inauguration, but her church will get to see it!

    AKA Carolyn W.

  5. Karenza

    Penner–

    Thank you for taking the time to share your story. It meant a lot to me and paralled a similar experience I had. In the 90s my husband and I bought my great-aunt’s house after her death. Her one daughter and she were estranged and the daughter sold the house to me without a second thought. This tiny rundown house was filled with 60 years of living. Most of the contents went into a dumpster, but I saved many treasures from books, furniture, to costume jewelry. My husband and I worked our fingers to the bone fixing up the place. It took about 4.5 years to get it really spiffy again. Then we had two children and had to move to a bigger place. The huge profit we made on the sale of the house paid off my student loans and included enough for 20% down on our new house. I am sure that my great Aunt Eleanor had this all planned and was looking out for us. I am also confident that your Aunt Hannah would be pleased that her jewelry is providing a good education for your son of whom she was so fond. . .

  6. penner

    Thanks so much for reading my post so carefully and responding so thoughtfully. Gretchen, you’re right that doing this task in that old store was emotional–the store really is part of our town’s founding & history. Mike, it took me time to process all the thoughts and feelings about objects and their value–I’m glad I spent the time so that I could “just do it.” I’m glad the piece is helpful and meaningful to readers. EconoWhiners rule!

  7. karen miller

    Great little story. Close to my heart. I’ve been waiting to sell my late parents things, but now that my boyfriend and I have lost our jobs I’ll have to put that project on the front burner. I’m just wondering whether I should put the stuff on eBay, Craigslist, or just go to an estate buy-back kind of place like you did. (Also I was just a tad confused–you went to the estate buy-back place even though you said earlier in your story that this store was going under as well? I’m sorry, maybe I misread…).

  8. Elizabeth in Silicon Valley

    I haven’t had to do anything as dramatic as sell sentimental family jewelry under pressure, but my mother-in-law have my husband and me a old ring she no longer wore in hopes it might raise a bit of cash for funds to help us buy our first house in the mid-90’s (before the sky rocketing prices). It was a very 70’s free-form gold nugget style cocktail ring with a large single diamond. She got an appraisal at her local jeweler in Wyoming of $600 for the stone or the gold (I think the jeweler my m-i-l dealt with was hoping for trade-in, as she frequently shopped there). But not a penny more for both. So taking it to the local appraiser in good times, I had it looked over like it was a piece of junk and given a bid of measly $300 for the stone and $50 for the gold. I returned it to my m-i-l and told her I could not get what her jeweler appraised it for and that she should keep it anyway. At least when she passed away, it went to her oldest grandchild, who always liked the ring. So even in good times, appraisers will low-ball you with prices or just give you weight value for metal/stones itself.

    Appreciate what you still do have of your Aunt Hannah’s and pass them onto your children with those heart warming stories about her. It’s the oral traditions that turn things into heirlooms. I’m sorry you had to part with some of her jewelry. At least the bracelet is around to be bought back someday.