WOULD YOU PAY THIS MUCH FOR THIS SHERMAN?

There's a Sherman choker currently listed on eBay with a "buy it now" price I find a little hard to believe. You can take a look at it HERE. The reason I'm having trouble with the seller's asking price of $275 CAD or best offer is that I am selling the exact same Sherman choker shown on the right from my SHOP AT RUBY LANE for only $95 including Free Insured Shipping! So which one of us is missing something here? Am I, in my usual way, asking too little for a Sherman or is that eBay seller asking too much?

You know I'm finding it harder and harder to price Shermans these days. When it comes to the Siam red Shermans, you know the price is going to be sky-high, whether you're trying to win it on ebay or just trying to buy one. And I sometimes think that each such auction just pumps the prices of Shermans up and up so that sooner or later, like the stock market, there'll be a bubble and when it bursts, watch out for the fallout!

Everyday new people are writing to me asking about Shermans. They're in love with the designer, want to collect but like anything one collects, you still have to be careful to not overpay. Maybe it won't matter today if all you're doing is collecting, but if for some reason, tomorrow you have to sell a piece, it sure can hurt if you overpaid in the first place. I had that experience just recently when I listed the lovely book piece necklace shown below on Ebay and foolishly started

the bidding at $9.95. Never did I dream that the most anyone would bid for this beauty was $37. To my horror, I watched myself lose over $60 on this one because I had obviously overpaid it when I bought it. It was my first Sherman purchase and I was thrilled to later find it listed in Valerie Hammond's "All that Glitters" book. Valerie put a price on it of $195 - $225. I congratulated myself for buying it for only $110. Later, I listed it on my site at SHERMAN JEWELLERY SHOWCASE and also in MY SHOP AT RUBY LANE. Months went by and no-one bought it. I kept dropping the price till it was listed at what I'd paid and still no takers. So I sent it to eBay. The rest is history.

I'll never understand why a lovely necklace like that garnered so few bids. I'll never understand why a Sherman authority valued it for twice what I paid and 5 times what my winning bidder paid. But there's a moral in all this: when you're buying Sherman or any collectible designer vintage jewelry, shop around. Get savvy before you start buying up. Watch ebay auctions. Visit websites selling Shermans. Compare prices. Only then will you know whether you would or should pay this or that for a particular Sherman.

TO BUY OR NOT TO BUY AN UNSIGNED SHERMAN?

I was recently very pleased to have Valerie Hammond, author of the book "All that Glitters", a reference and value guide to Sherman jewellery comment on one of my posts. In her post, Valerie reiterated her comments about the authenticity of unsigned jewelry that is purported to be Sherman. Here's what Valerie wrote on this subject:

I was recently assured during conversations with members of the family that there were absolutely, never, ever any unsigned pieces of Sherman produced by the company at any time. The family is most emphatic about this point. That means no unsigned earrings with signed brooches, no unsigned bracelets with necklaces. There are dealers who sell "unsigned" Sherman, believing that only part of a Parure may have carried that distinctive signature."

If that's truly the case, then how on earth do we explain sets that are obvious matches like the one shown in this post? The earrings are signed "Sherman". The necklace is not! Yet they are a match! I own this set. It's the only set I have where one piece is not signed Sherman since I make it a rule to never buy unsigned Shermans. I didn't realize the necklace in this piece wasn't signed until I got it. It came from an estate of a Sherman collector! And there's no denying the pieces are identical.

I've mentioned elsehwere in this blog that supposedly some Sherman sets came with a hang tag on one piece of a set. Could this be true? Many believe this is true. Yet the Sherman family has told Valerie Hammond that this cannot be. Who are we, the buyers and collectors to believe?

In her book, Valerie also states that conjecture is that "at some point during the company's life, designs, moulds and findings were removed from the building and used elsewhere for the manufacturing of copies." If this is true, then perhaps that "unsigned" Sherman is a copy and not authentic and is now coupled with a signed piece. Gee I wish someone besides Valerie knew more about this subject and could help us clarify this issue which is such a sore point between buyers, sellers and collectors of Sherman jewelry.



So while we're on this subject, on the left is another supposed set of Sherman currently being auctioned on eBay. (Click photo to visit the auction) The vendor states: "Earrings are signed Sherman, necklace is a definitive match (and is as expected, not signed)"

As expected??!! Oh boy! Now look what's happening: now we are having sellers claim this is "expected"! I don't think so! Quite honestly, this makes me mad. It's one thing for sellers to say one piece is signed and the other isn't but they're an obvious match. It's another to say we should expect that one of the pieces not be signed. Rubbish! We should expect both pieces to be signed if it's authentic Sherman. This auction will be very interesting to watch.

And by the way, do yourself a favour if you're serious about collecting Sherman jewellery. Buy Valerie's book!