Russian Gold and Silver Details

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LONDON

It is reported here that the Banca Commerciale Italiana has purchased a portion of the Russian crown jewels that had been put up for sale in Paris by the Moscow government. The price of the gems, it is understood, was nearly $20,000,000.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 11th March 1925

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According to some of the most fashionable retail jewelers here Imperial Russia is exercising a decided influence on dress and jewelry designs. This is considered the more surprising since it was believed that only Soviet Russia has been able to sway any sentiment in dress or design since the war, and that imperial influence in the country is practically dead. Apart from the Cossack coat and the Cossack turban and the Cossack boot, there is a trend in Cossack jewelry, it seems. With the amber yellow turban and fur a complete outfit of amber jewelry is necessary, including a necklace of fine carved beads, very long geometrically designed earrings and an ornamental pin of Siberian amber for the turban. A number of these Russian sets have made their appearance in Paris and London, and the jewelry shops are beginning to stock “Siberian amber” jewelry in anticipation of a demand this Winter, now that Cossack boots, astrachan and turbans are increasing in popularity.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular- 1st December 1926

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LONDON

The latest regarding the Russian crown jewels, according to a British United Press wire from Moscow is to the effect that efforts of buyers from the United States and from Amsterdam to buy portions of the Russian crown jewels which are valued at more than $175,000,000 have failed. The entire collection remains intact in the treasury of the Kremlin.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular- 1st December 1926

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Two workers, while digging a ditch in Sverdlovsk, found seven gold bars weighing 7 kilograms 436 grams. The bars were hidden under a great flag stone. No theory for the origin of the treasure could be advanced with any degree of probability. The gold bars were handed over to the representatives of the State. The workers will be rewarded appropriately.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular- 24th November 1927

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Soviet gold industry will show a considerable development in the near future, according to A. P. Serebrovsky, member of the Presidium of the Supreme Economic Council of the U. S. S. R., and a representative of the Soviet Gold Trust, who has just arrived in New York from the Soviet Union for a stay of about three months. American methods and machinery will be used for developing the Soviet gold industry. At present the gold output of the Soviet Union amounts to about 42 per cent of the pre-war figure. This is Mr. Serebrovsky’s second visit to the United States.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular- 15th December 1927

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Unemployment is a grave problem in Soviet Russia at the present time. It affects great numbers of people and many trades all over the Soviet Union. Watchmakers and engravers, among other workers, experience bad times and scarcity of jobs. In some localities, the government tries to help the unemployed by forming co-operative societies among them and opening shops for such groups. In Kharkov, the capital of Ukrain, the “Komborbez,” or the government’s Committee For the Struggle Against Unemployment, opened a watchmaking and engraving shop, where the erstwhile, jobless men are kept busy attending to private custom and government orders, the latter, according to an official report, being “taking care of clocks in State factories and State offices at advantageous rates.”

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 9th March 1927

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Who are the new buyers of jewelry and other objects of luxury in Soviet Russia? This interesting question is answered at some length by one B. Nevidimtzev, a Russian who recently emigrated to Western Europe and now describes the life of Red Moscow in Volia Rossii (the Liberty of Russia), a magazine of Russian exiles in Prague, Czechoslovakia. The series of his articles bears a significant title of “The Blue Blood.” Some of the high Communist officials of Russia, that took a liking to the life of luxury and ease, many representatives of the “Nepmen,” the new rich created by the “Nep’ (New Economic Policy) and a remnant of the old nobility and moneyed aristocracy that miraculously weathered the terror of 1918-1921—these are the people of the new “Blue Blood” of Russia, according to the writer. He describes their rich apartments full of rare china “of all eras and countries” and resplendent with valuable collections of jewelry—‘“collections of jeweled snuff-boxes, collections of earrings, collections of ancient silver crosses” (the latter being of the small size that Russians are accustomed to wear suspended from a chain on their chests), “collections of old pearls” and so forth. Many pieces of jewelry are worn by the new “aristocrats” on their persons, and since good breeding is rare in their midst, the new “Blue Blood” group does not show much taste and tact. Quantity and not quality plays the most important part. The women of the new privileged class put on as many diamonds and pearls as possible and as showy as possible. “Each of them is a whole showcase of a jeweler’s store,” says the author.

B. Nevidimtzev adds that Smolensky market in Moscow has become the main centre of traffic in jewelry and antiques. According to Ogonek (the Little Fire), a Moscow illustrated weekly, the best silver and most authentic china could be found in the shops and stalls of that “bazaar.”

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 9th March 1927

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The Russian exiles in Western Europe, those that managed to preserve some vestige of their whilom wealth, have jewelry fashions of their own, it seems. In Rul (the Rudder), a Russian newspaper of Berlin, we come across an interesting article by a woman-writer, one Aimee Mirowa, who tells us that “onyx was fashionable last year, but emerald came to the fore recently.” She goes on:

“Emeralds are used now together with diamonds a great deal. Bracelets set with diamonds, but with a big emerald (or a few small emeralds) in the centre are very popular. We do not recommend wearing bracelets made wholly of diamonds, unless the work is extremely artistic. The bracelet could be quite wide, but no wider than five centimeters. You may have from one to two such bracelets on your hand; a pearl string between a pair of bracelets supplies a fine artistic touch. Six or seven bracelets on each hand, a practice seen in Paris and Berlin, is vulgar and not recommended.”

The writer makes a point to say that her discourses on jewelry fashions are only for those Russian exiles “who wear real jewelry and not department store articles.”

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 9th March 1927

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Russia’s First Platinum Refining Works

The first platinum refining works in Russia were opened in March last at Eaterinburg, by a mining company in the Nikolo-Pavdinsk district. The platinum refining process yields a series of metal of high value especially iridium. As long as Russian platinum was refined abroad, the value of iridium and other precious subsidiary metals was mostly lost in Russia.

Source: The Brass World - February 1917

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According to the current issue of Russia, published by R. Martens & Co., New York, the imperial government is about to requisition Russian platinum stocks, as an order has gone forth forbidding sales of the metal. The Ural district, which supplies nearly the whole world, produced less than 120 poods last year, or only one-third of the normal output.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 7th March 1917

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RUSSIAN CROWN JEWELS

Report States Royal Gems Are Held in Germany on a Pledge for 60 Per Cent of Their Value

The New York Times last week published a most interesting story to the effect that the Russian Crown Jewels had been pledged to Hugo Steiness, the great commercial magnate of Germany, for about 60 per cent of their value.

The story came in the way of a special cable from Berlin which is copyrighted by the Times, stating that Mr. Steiness had received the jewels from the Russian representative at Berlin and that among them was the famous “Orloff Diamond,” the principal diamond in the jewels of the Czars.

The value of these “Crown Jewels” according to the dispatch was not made public but the loan has been estimated as over a million.

Another article, said to be in the collection, was a black pearl necklace valued at over $400,000.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 25th January 1922

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Countess Sophie Torby of Regent’s Park, London, who died last September, has bequeathed her ruby brooch and pendants to Queen Mary. The countess was the wife of the Grand Duke Michael Michaelovitch of Russia. She directed that her pearl necklace should be sold and the proceeds used as a primary fund to pay death duties. The Russian sapphire corsage and ruby cross, formerly owned by the Grand Duchess Olga Feodorovna, goes to her son Michael. She left nearly $90,000.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 22nd December 1927

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Soviet newspapers report that a Samuel Heller, representing a New York firm of jewelers, has arrived in Leningrad recently. He is said to have signed a contract with “Russky Samotzvet,” the Soviet State trust having charge of the Ural semi-precious stone industry, involving transactions on a great scale. Mr. Heller’s concern is reported to have agreed to buy the whole output of Russian emeralds and large quantities of other Ural stones, the purchases to be regularly shipped via air-express to the Paris office of the American firm. (Mr. Heller is the head of the firm of L. Heller & Son, Inc., 15 W. 47th St., New York.)

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 20th October 1927

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The Soviet government’s is a policy of encouraging trade schools, co-operative societies and cottage industries, but of discouraging, at the same time, the private initiative of “non-producing merchants.” We hear two news items from Soviet Russia almost simultaneously. From Leningrad we have a report that a new decree obliges all the merchants actively engaged in business to state clearly their individual names on their shop signs. Ambiguous names, sounding as if the enterprise belonged to the State or to a co-operative society, are forbidden. But co-operatives and cottage-industries are given every assistance and encouragement at every step. A Moscow newspaper reports that the Soviet government will send products of the cottage-industries (“kustari,” as they are called in Russia) to the Milan Exhibition of Trade and Commerce. Among others, the jewelers-“kustari” of Kostroma and Kazan provinces and their work will be represented at the Italian exhibition.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 26th January 1927

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A capacious vault, formerly belonging to Princess Obolensky, was pried open recently by the Leningrad authorities. Much silverware and different objects made of gold and silver were found in the safe together with a 10-pound silver bar. All was confiscated by the Soviet Treasury. Princess Obolensky belonged to one of the oldest and richest families of the Russian aristocracy. Many of its members fled abroad during and right after the Revolution. A Prince Obolensky married an Astor and is residing in New York at the present time.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 29th December 1926

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The Soviet conviction that watchmakers are not exactly workers and do not deserve workers’ privileges is not only preached but practiced as well. The Russian newspapers advise that in Odessa rents are levied not according to the types and qualities of rooms and stores but according to the types and qualities of tenants. The rent scale, worked out by. the government, does not favor watchmakers with the privileges it bestows upon other workers. Watchmakers and jewelers have to pay more than cabinetmakers and cobblers for the same stores and living rooms. Barbers, however, pay higher rents than jewelers or watchmakers.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 29th December 1926

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The Soviet authorities have ordered an investigation of the state of affairs in the nationalized jewelry stores of Moscow and other Russian cities. The action was caused by the publication of a story some time ago, which reflected upon the efficiency of the managers running State jewelry stores in the Red capital. The story entitled “An Easy Job” was published in Krasnaya Nov (“The Red Virgin Soil”), a Soviet owned monthly of Moscow, and one of the leading Russian periodicals of general interest today. Slovenly ways of serving the customers in a State jewelry store were vividly depicted by the writer. Panteleimon Romanoff, the author of the story, a foremost Soviet Russian novelist and short-story writer, did not mean to criticize the nationalization of privately-owned jewelry stores; his was the criticism not of the Soviet principle, but of some of the men who are putting this principle into effect in a very wrong way. The obvious moral of the story was that efficiency in managing a jewelry store must not be diminished just because the store was taken away from its private owner and now belongs to the State.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 25th October 1928

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The long delayed construction of the first in Soviet Russia watch-factory has at last begun in Leningrad. The factory will supply the Russian market with pocket and wrist-watches. A group of Russian specialists are to be sent abroad to get acquainted with the foreign methods of time-piece production.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 25th October 1928

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Some interesting facts concerning the disposal of some of the Romanoff jewels by the Soviet government to the London Syndicate which were auctioned off at Christie’s last year in London, will most likely come to light when a suit before Justice McKinnon filed by the widow of the Grand Duke Paul of Russia to recover certain treasures belonging to her is heard next month. There are eight defendants to the suit. Princess Paley, the plaintiff, will allege that some of the goods sold by the Soviet to the London syndicate formed to purchase them were taken from her Russian home. Soviet officials are coming to London as witnesses for the defense. The latter, it is understood, will raise an interesting point in law. The treasures purchased by the syndicate arrived from Russia in May, and the plaintiff prevented their sale by obtaining an injunction in the High Court. The goods have been lying in a bonded warehouse since. The principal defendant is Norman Weisz, a Hatton Garden pearl and precious stone merchant. The Daily Mail says it was Weisz who arranged for the purchase of a portion of the Russian State jewels, including the nuptial crown, which realized around $400,000 at Christie’s last year.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 8th November 1928

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The Soviet commissariat of finance made public new rules on import and export of valuables. Among other objects, it is forbidden to export from the Soviet Union platinum and gold of pre-war manufacture and coinage. A special permit must be sought by any person who wishes to export pre-war articles or coins of platinum and gold. to foreign countries.

Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 20th September 1928

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