The Value of a Jewelry Box

A friend of mine’s mother recently died, and he is cleaning out her home. Many of her things are going to her friends and family, and many items are being donated to a women’s shelter. My friend also invited me to come over and look through her things. He knows that I love “eviction sales”, rummage sales, and dumpster diving, so despite the sadness associated with him losing his mother, this was a really fun activity for me.

One of the items I picked out immediately was a decorative jewelry box. I’ve always wanted one of those fancy jewelry boxes that unfold. However, it’s a silly luxury, and not something I’m actually very likely to spend much money on. That makes it the perfect item to pick up in a thrift store or to find amongst the available stuff at his mother’s house.

When taking the jewelry out of the box, I discovered a snippet of catalog in a drawer, describing the box and listing it at $350. Wow! My two friends who were there with me and I all made astonished sounds that this thing had once cost $350 and that somebody had once paid that much for it. It was a nice jewelry box, of course, but that it could be worth that much surprised me, and it surprised my friend that his mom might have paid that much for it.

Upon getting the jewelry box home, I was opening it up to show to Joshua. I noticed a detail on the mirror section that seemed incongruous with a $35o item. I looked at the catalog snippet again, and read the text describing the box. Then I started looking back and forth between the box and the catalog listing and found something very interesting.

Here’s a picture of the catalog listing.

The text says: Clever, practical, elegant – this reproduction of an antique jewelry chest is the embodiment of oriental design and tradition. You’ll be fascinated to see how it unfolds – puzzle like. Each of the two wings has a pair of small drawers. These & four other offer enough space for all the pearls & jade of an Empress. Handcrafted of richly grained hardwood. Antique brass lotus-petal pulls. All 22 of its decorative brass plates & hinges are delicately incised in a floral pattern. Two interesting front closures. A magnificent gift. 10″w. x 11″h. x 15″ d. 9466 (25lbs.) $350.00

First, aren’t product descriptions fascinating all by themselves? By assuring me that there’s enough room for an Empress’s jewels, am I being assured that I am fit to be an Empress? How strange! Why would I want to feel like an Empress and why would I seek to get that experience from a wooden box purchased from a catalog?

Anyway.

Here are pictures of the actual jewelry box, closed and opened.

Upon closer inspection, there are several distinct differences between the actual jewelry box and the listing. The listing mentions the lotus-petal pulls on the drawers which are not present on the box. The box has small bead pulls instead. The listing calls attention to the brassware with intricate floral patters, while the box I have has solid hinge hardware. The listing calls the front closure “interesting”, and the closure in the catalog does look interesting, whereas the closure on my box is plain. The other big difference between the two boxes is that the wood in the listing photo is all the same color. My jewelry box has wood of two very different colors. Then there’s the out-of-place detail that caused me to look closer in the first place (and which will reveal my own snobbery, but the story isn’t complete without it.) In the photo in the catalog snippet, the mirror is attached by no visible hardware. It sits smoothly into the wooden frame around it. On the box that I have, the mirror is attached to the wood behind it by little plastic sunburst pieces that remind me of how mirrors were attached to walls in the 80s. I associate it with out-of-date bathrooms, and it surprised me to see those little plastic swirls on this supposedly expensive piece.

It may not be possible to see all the little differences from my picture-taking here. Let me assure you though, the jewelry box that I have is absolutely not the one in the catalog. However, it is clearly meant to very much resemble the one in the catalog.

Now, I had originally thought it odd that the catalog listing was in the jewelry box in the first place. Who buys something from a catalog and then keeps the listing for it? That seemed like a strange choice. Now that I’ve noticed that they aren’t the same box, though, I think a different scenario took place.

I think someone copied the box, creating a product that is very similar, but also very different upon closer inspection. Then they put the listing for the catalog jewelry box in the drawer of their creation. Then they sold this item at a flea market or estate resale shop. I think the idea was for someone to be looking at the box, notice the $350 catalog listing, and think they were getting a bargain on it. It could have been listed for, say, $100, and the buyer would think they were making off with a great deal. I think very few people would be likely to notice the differences upon first glace. I didn’t, and neither did the other four people around me who saw it prior to me getting it home and really looking at it. I think this is a great little scam, if you even want to call it that. Someone made a jewelry box – a perfectly functional, attractive, well-made box – put a catalog snippet in a drawer, and let people draw their own conclusions about its value.

Another possible scenario is that my friend’s mom saw the jewelry box in the catalog and had someone make her a copy, giving them the catalog picture as a reference. Then there’s still the question about why she left the paper in a drawer. However, there weren’t many things in the box, so perhaps the box had been handed over to her with the reference paper in it and she simply never removed it.

Having looked at it very closely, I see that the box I own is not as “nice” as the one in the catalog. Its value has gone up for me, though, not down. Now I have a piece with a little mystery inside, since I can only really guess as to the circumstances of its existence. My jewelry box contains layers of stories now – the fact that it came from my friend’s mom and the wondering about the catalog listing. I will leave the little slip of paper inside it, too, like she did. Perhaps someday I will hand the box down to someone else, and they too can ponder the mystery.

Tags: Advertising, Jewelry Box