GUEST: I brought a pair of Cartier diamond and platinum dress clips that belonged to my mother.

My mother got them from my father, who bought them from a family friend and jeweler out in New London, probably in the early '70s.

She loved them, and she wore them every Saturday night.

She was six-feet-tall.

APPRAISER: Oh, wow.

(chuckles) GUEST: Dark hair, dark eyes, red lips, red fingernails, and she was always dressed in black.

APPRAISER: Oh...

GUEST: And so, she wore them one on each side... APPRAISER: Beautiful.

GUEST: ...of her dinner jacket.

So, they, to me, mean good times.

They're really special, and when she died, about ten years ago, my father gave them to me.

When he was a little boy, he went to work really early, and, um... APPRAISER: Wow.

GUEST: one of the places he worked was a jewelry store in New London called Mallove's.

APPRAISER: Wow.

GUEST: Harvey Mallove was the owner, and he took my father under his wing.

And when my dad was married, Harvey would call my father whenever he got something good, and he got a bunch of jewelry that was deaccessioned from a museum in New London, and these clips were part of that lot that my father bought.

APPRAISER: Harvey must've really loved your dad.

(laughs) GUEST: He did.

(laughs) APPRAISER: Yeah, you know, in a special way because these are incredible clips.

They are platinum, diamond Cartier clips.

They could've been worn as your mother wore them, on, on a lapel, clipped onto a bag.

What's great about jewelry from this period-- and I would date these to around about 1930.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: So sort of mid-Art Deco period-- is that they were multipurpose.

Cartier was the first to really manipulate platinum.

At the end of the 19th century, they really turned platinum into a precious metal and something that was used in jewelry, which it previously had not been.

These are signed Cartier.

Uh, they also have a serial number.

GUEST: Mm.

APPRAISER: And they're signed on both clips.

GUEST: Yeah, I see.

APPRAISER: Originally, they would've been together on an armature, so you could wear them like a double-clip broach, like this.

GUEST: Oh, wow.

Yeah.

APPRAISER: Cartier was founded in 1847 by Louis-François Cartier, and it would really be his grandsons, Pierre, Jacques, and Louis who would make the brand worldwide.

Altogether, you have about 20 carats of diamonds.

GUEST: (gasps) APPRAISER: The two large center stones are each about two carats.

GUEST: Oh, wow.

APPRAISER: Uh, there's baguette-cut diamonds that flank them on either side, and then a mix of old European-cut and old mine-cut diamonds...

GUEST: Mm.

APPRAISER: ...throughout the rest of the clips.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: They are the height of quality.

They're incredibly luscious, and sparkly, and well-matched.

Do you know what your father purchased them for?

GUEST: I know that he paid $7,000 for the lot.

APPRAISER: Okay.

GUEST: I don't know what was in the lot, and he doesn't remember either.

APPRAISER: Okay.

Conservatively, I would say an auction estimate on the pair would be in the neighborhood of $30,000 to $50,000.

GUEST: Wow.

Wow.

APPRAISER: They truly are museum pieces.

GUEST: That surprises me.

(chuckles) I never-- you know, when you love something, you don't really ascribe a value to it.

APPRAISER: Yeah.

GUEST: So, it's a bonus.

I'm just happy to see them out.

APPRAISER: Yeah.

GUEST: (laughs) Out in the daylight, sparkling.

And my father will be so thrilled.

APPRAISER: Oh, I'm so happy.

GUEST: They meant a lot to him and a lot to my mom.

APPRAISER: Well, they're beautiful, he had incredible taste, and...

GUEST: Thank you, Katherine.

APPRAISER: It's the best of the best.

GUEST: I'm gonna cry!

(both laughing) (laughing): It's really hard-- APPRAISER: Don't cry, I'll cry!

(laughing) GUEST: It's really hard to believe--you have no idea how special these were.