Russian Gold and Silver Details

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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Special Correspondents at the Czar's Coronation are to be provided with a silver badge bearing either two pens or a pen and pencil entwined, and the word "correspondent" in French and Russian. An office will be established at Moscow by the Government to give all necessary information to home and foreign journalists.

Source: The Aberdare Times - 28th April 1883

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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JEWELLERS DEFRAUDED

HAUL BY SUPPOSED BRITISHER


An amazing coup at the expense of several of the leading Jewellery firms in St. Petersburg has so far baffled the Russian police (said the St. Petersburg correspondent of the "Daily News" on September 8). A British subject, as It subsequently proved from his passport, who had been spending a few days at a leading hotel here, settled his bill, and had his things prepared for removal. He then remarked that he had still an
hour before train time, and set out for an automobile run in the city.

He went direct to Messrs. Faberge, Jewellers to the Imperial Court, where he asked to see some diamond necklaces, saying that he wished to send a present abroad to his wife. He had with him an Interpreter from the hotel, as on all his previous sight-seeings, for he said he spoke only English. He bought a necklace for twelve thousand roubles, and paid for It with two cheques— one on a Chicago and the other on a London bank. The cheques wore examined and accepted.

He then went to another fashionable jeweller, and bought rings and jewels for over 20,000 roubles, for which he also paid in cheques. He repeated the operation at a third and a fourth establishment, and returned to the hotel with jewellery worth over 100,000 roubles. He immediately set out for the railway station, after tipping the hotel attendants handsomely, and, departed abroad via Finland. Next morning, when the cheques were taken to various banks, they were rejected by ail except one bank, which paid on two of them. It now proves that they were all forgeries.

From the copy of the passport taken at the hotel the visitor's name appears as George Morgan, a British subject, although the passport was taken out at Washington, The hotel staff describe him us a tall gentleman of good appearance, with dark moustache, and wearing eye-glasses. He seemed to be about 45 years old. During his stay he gave the Impression of a wealthy tourist, of whom there are many at present here and In Moscow.

The police on the Continent and in England have been communicated with, but so far there is no trace of where he has gone beyond. that he had time to leave Russian territory before the cheques were taken to the bank.


Source: The Herald - 28th October 1912

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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GEORGE DELAVIGNE

Moscow


Last Thursday J. H. Venon received a cablegram from Moscow, Russia, announcing the tragic deaths of Henri Delavigne and his father, George
Delavigne, a prominent jeweler of Moscow, both assassinated at Baku, the oil city of Southern Russia. Henri Delavigne, who spent a year at the office of J. H. Venon learning the English language and American business methods, and had recently returned to Russia to establish a business there, was a very accomplished young man of 24, speaking French, German, English and Russian fluently. He will be remembered by the trade, having accompanied Mr. Venon in his travels in this country, and made a fine impression by his good manners and amiable disposition. His sad fate shows what traveling in Russia means, as he actually died in defending his property from bandits who attacked his father and himself.


Source: Crockery & Glass Journal - 27th April 1911

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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The death sentences meted out by the Soviet court to Kleiner and Taitz, two jewelers convicted of smuggling activities, were carried out by a Soviet firing squad on October 26. Immediately after the court had made known its decision in their case, the condemned men tried to win mercy from the highest authority in Russia, but the All-Union Central Executive Council of Soviets rejected their joint application for the mollification of their sentences.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 21st November 1929

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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Secret police at Moscow, Russia, recently discovered 60 pounds of gold and silver coins of the Czarist period and a large quantity of jeweled church ornaments in a pig sty. Authorities said the articles were seized when the Government ordered confiscation of valuable church properties. A pastor had entrusted them to the peasant, who faces a long prison term.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 5th December 1929

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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Russian workers continue to contribute the few pieces of their modest jewelry to the so-called Golden Fund of Industrialization . Thus , the workers of Ribinsk , following the example of the Baku oil-field laborers and of the Gomel hospital-employees, have given over their golden earrings, wedding rings , and other personal jewelry to the authorities to be used for the industrial and socialistic development of the country, at the same time appealing to the rest of Soviet labor to do likewise.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 30th January 1930

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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It seems unbelievable that a metal of the value of platinum of which the most expensive and choicest jewelry is made and which at the present time is the most popular material for wedding and engagement rings, should a few years ago have been employed in the composition of the most ordinary household articles.

When a deposit of platinum was discovered in the Ural mountains in Russia about 50 years ago, the Russia government mined it and attempted the use of it in Russian coins. But it met with little enthusiasm and the coins at last were discarded. The deposits were so extensive that the material was very cheap. Manufacturers used it for purposes little better than those of tin. Cooking utensils of platinum, platinum umbrella handles, even platinum buttons on policeman's coat fronts were common in that country.

A few years later, when the supply of platinum was almost exhausted, its use as a material for jewelry-making was begun. The material was so hard to find that it was, of course, very expensive. A wholesale jeweler in this country decided to send buyers to Russia to purchase quantities of the articles for which platinum had been used. The men sent out were unsuccessful, for the Germans had been there first and bought up every available bit of platinum, and as one man wrote back “There is not even a platinum stovepipe left.”


Source: The Metal Industry - April 1924

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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The St. Petersburg papers report a great development of the gold production of Russia. Strata containing gold in considerable quantity have recently been discovered in the Ural Mountains. It is said that in the district of Sennigsei, a Russian proprietor has found in his gold mine, near Motygyme, a nugget 445 lb. in weight, representing a value of nearly £15,000.

Source: The Watchmaker, Jeweller and Silversmith - 6th October 1879

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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The latest Soviet regulations and border practices seem to indicate no jewelry can be taken along by persons leaving the Soviet Union. A traveler can take with him or her no more than one wedding ring. No further exceptions or privileges are granted to anyone.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 26th December 1929

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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Secret vaults with much ecclesiastical jewelry were discovered by the local Soviet authorities of Tambov (central Russia), when the Pitirim Cathedral was being given over to workers' organizations and made into a club-house. The authorities were searching for this jewelry ever since 1918. The State treasury is the beneficiary of the find.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 26th December 1929

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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Krengel, a former jeweler and silversmith, is among the 14 rabbis and Jewish religious leaders arrested and awaiting their trial in Minsk (Western Russia) for alleged counter-revolutionary offences. Krengel is individually charged with having used silver and other precious metals, about to be confiscated by Soviet authorities, in making and selling spoons and forks for his own profit.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 27th March 1930

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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Russian Platinum

The British consul at Ekaterinburg, Russia reports that during the current year the production of platinum in the Urals has been seriously affected by the scarcity of labor in the case of hand washings by tributers, and in the case of mechanical dredging plants by the difficulty in obtaining spare parts for dredges.

The production of platinum in 1916 is estimated at 100 to 120 poods (3,000 to 4300 pounds), or one-third of the normal production. To this decrease in output, as well as to speculation by local buyers, may be attributed the rise in the price of platinum.


Source: Board of Trade Journal - 26th October 1916

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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Victor Adlen, a special correspondent of the Leningrad daily, Pravda (The Truth) , writes of his recent visit to Kubachi, the famous Caucasian hamlet of mountaineer goldsmiths and silver smiths:

“The celebrated artistic industries of the hamlet, with their development of centuries, are now dying a slow death. The revolution, the breaking-up of old habits, have delivered these industries a great blow. There is no need in ornamenting one's weapons with gold and silver. There is less demand for silver belts, cigarette cases and various objects of native jewelry, which once upon a time were widely popular among the Russian as well as the foreign bourgeois elements.

"Out of the former population of 6000, only 2000 inhabitants now remain in Kubachi. The great hamlet, resembling a mediaeval town, becomes more and more deserted and gradually deteriorates.

“The economic organizations of the region now face the problem of finding a new consumer for the artistic industries of Kubachi. Professor Yakovlev suggests the wider export of the native jewelry. Some samples of the native jewelry were sent to Moscow, but no word of encouragement, or any answer for that matter, came back to Kubachi.”

Victor Adlen calls the suggestion of Professor Yakovlev “no more than a half-solution of the problem.” He proposes to transform the goldsmiths and silversmiths of Kubachi into blacksmiths, disregarding the fact that their families for centuries had been craftsmen of jewelry and remembering only the crying need of the Soviet Union for shears, knives, horseshoes, garden tools and small agricultural machinery, many of which the country is obliged to import.


Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 21th November 1929

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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Russian Government to Sell Platinum in United States Through Its Own Agents

It became known last week that the Soviet Government of Russia had decided to market Russian platinum in the United States directly through its own agent, and formal announcements were made in the form of advertisements of the Precious Metals Trade Co., Ltd., designated as “sole sellers of U. S. S. R. (Russian) platinum” and announcing its representative in the United States to be the Amtorg Trading Corp., 165 Broadway, New York.

At the office of this corporation the news was confirmed and it was stated that platinum would be marketed here in large quantities only; that the concern did not intend to do business in small orders, and that the metal was not in manufactured form but was crude platinum, 998½ fine. They are already quoting prices on soft platinum, but not on the other platinum metals.


Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 20th April 1927

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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Soviet Russia is the worst place in the world for jewelers, according to Dr. William C. Seifriz, professor of botany at the University of Pennsylvania, who has just returned from a long visit to that country, where he addressed a number of scientific meetings. Dr. Seifriz paints a somewhat different picture of Russia today than people here have been accustomed to. He finds the people satisfied with the Soviet regime, conditions far better than he had been led to believe and that art and science are fostered by the government far more so than under the rule of the Tsars. He commented, however, upon the lack of outward evidences of wealth and said women who attend the opera or other functions wear no jewelry at all, while jewelry stores in Leningrad and Moscow are few and devoted mostly to repairing watches and clocks.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 3rd November 1927

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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Around $750,000 worth of Russian jewels have been bought by Emanuel Snowman, a London diamond merchant, from the Soviet government. The negotiations for the gems have been proceeding for the past 12 months and the deal was eventually completed in Paris. The jewelry, it is understood, includes a number of coveted relics of the Romanoff family. Mr. Snowman says his object in buying them is to prevent their passing into the hands of moneyed people who have neither the art nor taste to appreciate them. It would be sacrilege, he says, for such beautiful things to get into the hands of such people. He says it is impossible to set a value on such a collection.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 22nd December 1927

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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Russian newspapers report that a large shipment of ex-Czar jewelry was sold recently in Paris to a British jeweler. The sale was effected by representatives of the Soviet government who journeyed to France for the sole purpose of this transaction. Experts who viewed the collection assert that it contains some pieces of exceptional value, commercial as well as artistic. Most of the objects had been created for the Imperial family by the well known Russian-French jeweler Faberget (the Jewelers' Circular reported his trial in Leningrad last year). Of especial note is the clock ornamented with diamonds, which was taken from the boudoir of the Czarina in the Czarskoye Selo palace. There are also: a treasure- box whose cover is elaborated with the finest aquamarines ever known; a perfume bottle made of crystal and gold and ornamented with diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires, formerly belonging to the Grand Duchess Maria Alexeevna; a Buddha figure with a great emerald (said to have come from the Hermitage collections); a golden dish with rubies and diamonds for its ornaments, originally of the treasures of the St. Isaac Cathedral; a ring which had belonged to Emperor Peter the Great; also many cigarette-cases, perfume-bottles, jeweled fans and opera-glasses, and richly encrusted daggers.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 22nd December 1927

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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The recent sale of Russian crown jewels in the London auction rooms continues to serve a topic of animated discussion in the press of Russian exiles. One of the periodicals came out with the “sensational” revelation that the British syndicate which took charge of the sale was in fact composed of Soviet officials sent to England from Russia for that very purpose. The newspaper goes on to say that Paris was the original aim of the Soviet traveling men, but on arriving in France they were disappointed to learn of the drastic taxes that are levied on every public sale according to the French laws. Their next stop was London, and here their endeavors have met with success, as the whole world knows now.

While the Soviet government makes efforts to help the homeless boys with jewelry of the former aristocracy, the homeless boys help themselves to the jewelry of Lenin. Krasnaya Gasetta (The Red Newspaper of Leningrad) reports that one day a few weeks ago curators of the Lenin Museum discovered the theft of a silver cigarette case that once belonged to the deceased Red leader. This relic was highly valued by the organizers of the museum, and consequently the best operatives of the Soviet Political Police were sent out to hunt down the stolen cigarette case and its violators. The case was found in a short time in the market-stall of a merchant that dealt in old gold and silver. The merchant declared that he bought Lenin’s cigarette case from two homeless boys for 6 roubles (about $3). The boys could not be found.


Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 13th April 1927

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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Is owning and wearing of jewelry forbidden in Soviet Russia?

This query was propounded to the Soviet district attorneys by a citizen arrested and grilled as to the number of jewelry pieces owned by him and his wife.

“It is not forbidden, but it is not encouraged,” was the laconic yet full of meaning reply of the State men of justice, according to Vozrozhdenye (Reconstruction), a Russian daily published in Paris. The same newspaper advises of numerous cases When the detectives of the Soviet Political Police visited houses of citizens, whom indiscreet rumors held as owners of much Jewelry, with warrants of search and arrest. A case was reported where the government men entered the rooms of a distinguished member of the Russian ballet and headed straight for a secret vault, in which the lady kept her diamonds ever since the turbulent days of 1918. The diamonds were confiscated, but the owner was not molested.


Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 13th April 1927

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Re: Russian Gold and Silver Details

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A great steel cage in the Soviet State Bank of Moscow is now the repository of the famous crown jewels of Russia, valued up to $275,000,000. Long tables within the cage are crowded with leather cases lined with plush, and there the marvelous collection dazzles and astonishes the visitors, many of whom are American and other foreign tourists and businessmen visiting the Red capital. Some of the gems are for sale by the Soviet government, which needs money to carry out its ambitious program of industrializing and socializing the country, but the high prices asked by the Soviet rulers and the unsatisfactory condition of the foreign market for such jewelry, each object of which would demand a royal fortune to buy it, prevent any transactions from being consumated of late.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 30th January 1930

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